Book Description
When St. Benedict formed his first small community of monks at Monte Cassino on the hilltop, Italy--and much of Europe--was ravaged by war. The Roman Empire was breaking apart, and politics, cultural life, and even the Church, were all in disarray. In the midst of these tumultuous times, Benedict offered his followers a "little rule," a guide about the size of a checkbook, that showed his monks the way to peace as they learned to prefer Christ above all things.
Though it was written nearly 1500 years ago, the Rule of Benedict still offers the practical tools for living a Christ-centered today. Here in St. Benedict's Toolbox, readers will find a primer on how to use these tools in their own tumultuous lives. Each chapter examines one aspect of the Rule, from ways of praying to ways of embracing humility, and offers suggestions for prayer, reflection, journaling, and action. As they learn to use Benedict's tools, readers will discover the power--and the timeliness--of this ancient way of life.
Customer Reviews:
Too Christocentric!.......2006-11-10
This book assumes that the Christianity is central to the reader's life. Although there are some good general points, the Christocentrism renders them practically useless for those of other faiths. Perhaps this was the author's intention, but I believe she could have made it inclusive without sacrificing the integrity of the book.
Great Title--Great Book.......2006-11-07
I am a lover of the Rule, and I am a lover of this book! It is wonderfully useful not just personally, but for retreats, prayer days, and spiritual direction exercises.
You can't go wrong here. Great little gift for those who follow the Rule.
One of the Best Benedictine Books.......2006-08-21
A practical, hands-on and realistic approach to the Rule of Saint Benedict. In true Benedictine spirit it is applicable to all people within all situations, yet is steeped within the monastic tradition. A useful and truly useable book.
A wealth of useful tools, practices, and explanations, ...........2006-06-16
As an Oblate of St. Benedict I have read many books on the Rule of Benedict. This is the most useful book on the Rule that I have read in several years. Jane Tomaine helps us understand the Rule of Benedict as it applies to our daily lives in the 21st Century. She begins by relating the Rule of Benedict to a foundation of Christian faith/life... our Baptismal Covenant. Regardless of your specific denomination, age, or faith tradition, you are likely to find a wealth of useful tools, practices, and explanations... of ways to seek (and establish) a fresh, consistent, awareness of God in your everyday life.
While the Rule of Benedict dates back 1500 years, Jane Tomaine makes the wisdom of the Rule of Benedict accessable to every person interested in living a life of faith today. You really can enjoy and use this book without any previous exposure to the Rule of Benedict.
Practical wisdom for everyday life.......2005-07-23
This book thoroughly lives up to its title. As a practical "how to" manual, it offers an amazing array of tools useful in very ordinary situations. Furthermore, it is firmly based on monastic tradition and excel-lent literature on the Rule of Benedict, as well as Tomaine's own life experience. Her interpretation of Benedictine obedience is a good example of her practical yet deeply spiritual approach: "Obedience is not what we expect from others. Obedience is what we do ourselves for others." Regarding stability she writes: "God in Christ is our Rock and as Christians, we want to put on Christ and become a rock too. We want to have a firm and solid center at the core of our being, so that we can withstand the unpredictability and transience of our world." A good bibliography adds to the value of the book for anyone interested in Benedict's 1500-year old Rule as a resource for living sanely in today's world. Sr. Lenora Black, OSB
Amazon.com
This beautifully written book offers instruction and inspiration to those who want to integrate altars into their daily lives. Author Denise Linn (Sacred Space, Quest, Sacred Legacies) helps readers become more conscious of what they are already unconsciously doing: creating altars in the kitchen corners, on shelves, and in other everyday spaces in their homes. "The urge to create sacred spaces is so deep in the human psyche that, even when there is no formalized intent to make an altar, we often create them subconsciously by the way we gather our photos on a piano, or by the way we carefully arrange objects on a desk or around a computer," Linn writes.
Linn suggests how to create altars with specific events or agendas in mind (i.e., holiday, vacation, or birthday altars filled with symbols of hope for the coming year). She also offers ideas for creating altars that honor new relationships, births, deaths, and other rites of passage. Exquisite color photographs make this a stunning resource for your home and spirit. --Gail Hudson
Book Description
"The creation of an altar is a sacred act, an act of power and grace. For a few timeless minutes you enter a dimension beyond ordinary reality, where light, sound, and energy merge into an exquisite state of being."
The human urge to create physical sacred centers for our lives is so deep that we often create them unconsciously. Photos on the dresser, personal objects on our desk or around the computer are tangible tokens of our longing for balance and wholeness--and of our attempts to strengthen connections between our loved ones, nature and community, and other great sources of spiritual power.
The internationally acclaimed author of Sacred Space, Denise Linn, speaks directly to this primal need for hallowed and holy places. In Altars, she demonstrates in photos and text how you can further enrich the areas around us at home or in the office by creating unique shrines for personal devotions, intimate centers for healing and contemplation. Beautifully illustrated and thoroughly practical, Altars shows how to
- Create personal altars for prayer and devotion, stillness and listening, loss and mourning, relationships and love, and connecting with the life energy
- Find the right place to install a home shrine, according to the points of the compass and the ancient and honored principles of feng shui
- Select altar objects that are particularly suited to your special needs
- Purify yourself and your altars with incense, prayers, drumming, and chanting
- And much more!
Everyone who yearns to draw near the mysterious and wondrous, to infuse ordinary moments with sacred meaning, will find a great wealth of beauty, inspiration, and wisdom in this unique book.
Customer Reviews:
Great Concept, OK Book.......2002-02-01
I agree with Denise Linn's approach to the topics of altars and sacred space. I learned some things from this book, and it gave me some issues to think through in my own life. But I was disappointed with the book at the same time. I didn't enjoy the pictures, and was left with a hungry feeling at the end. I've read many books about altars, and this is the best one so far, but isn't the gem I had expected (wanted) it to be.
The *best* book on Altars.......2001-10-14
I've looked at every book I could get my hands on about the subject of Altars, and Denise Linn's book on the topic is, in my opinion, the best. Many of the other books have way too much text, but Denise Linn's book on Altars has lots of great pictures and just the right amount of descriptive text. She also has wonderful suggestions on various types of altar objects (with pictures), where to find different altar objects, imaginative altar layouts, etc. This is a *must have* book, and unfortunately, I'm sad to see that it is currently out of print. So if you can find a used one, grab it ! ! You won't be disappointed.
Beautiful photos and filled with inspiration........2001-03-02
I have arranged various collected objects on a shelf for some time now and did not realize that this was actually an alter! This book has helped me reorganize my beloved and sacred objects into my very personal little space with the appropriate intent. Thank you to Ms. Linn for this wonderful book. I'm so happy that I purchased my copy last year as it is now out of print (which I don't understand since it was only published in 1999). If you can get your hands on a copy please cherish it.
Nice altar layouts no matter which spiritual path you follow.......2000-05-06
If you practise Amerindian spirituality, Buddhism, Christianity, etc as your spiritual path; you wil find ways to set up an altar in your home.
My only minor nitpick is that in the Medicine Wheel layouts on pages 56-61. Ms Linn places the elements in the wrong directions IMHO.
Altars--Intentional living!.......1999-12-30
This book just hit me at the right place and time. My entire life has been in transition for the past two years and I continue to watch and wait for my new direction to emerge.
Denise Linn has given me a tool to concretize the important events and processes that are SIGNS for me to follow along the way.
Her altars are a wonderfully conrete way to live intentionally and consciously.
In these times of great personal and global spiritual change, it is good to have personal signposts to divine the journey.
I have shared the book with friends who think equally high of it for similar reasons.
It provides the opportunity for joyful reflection on the great and small events which may otherwise pass by without their due respect.
Book Description
The power of music in everyday life is widely recognized and this is reflected in social theory from Plato to Adorno that portrays music as an influence on character, social structure and action. This book uses a series of ethnographic studies and in-depth interviews to show how music is a constitutive feature of human agency. Drawing together concepts from psychology, sociology and sociolinguistics it develops a theory of music's active role in the construction of social life and highlights the aesthetic dimension of social order and organization in modern societies.
Download Description
The power of music to influence mood, create scenes, routines and occasions is widely recognised and this is reflected in a strand of social theory from Plato to Adorno that portrays music as an influence on character, social structure and action. There have, however, been few attempts to specify this power empirically and to provide theoretically grounded accounts of music's structuring properties in everyday experience. Music in Everyday Life uses a series of ethnographic studies - an aerobics class, karaoke evenings, music therapy sessions and the use of background music in the retail sector - as well as in-depth interviews to show how music is a constitutive feature of human agency. Drawing together concepts from psychology, sociology and socio-linguistics it develops a theory of music's active role in the construction of personal and social life and highlights the aesthetic dimension of social order and organisation in late modern societies.
Customer Reviews:
Theoretically Weak At Times But Relevant Nonetheless.......2006-02-20
Music, many contend cannot simply be understood as just a "meaningful" or "communicative" medium. In, Music and Everyday Life (2000), DeNora pushes the envelope on this assertion head on by not only attempting to spotlight the importance that music has on the construction of identity, but also the importance music has on the development of human agency (many socio-musical studies have all together avoided addressing this gap empirically, or otherwise).
The crux of her approach relies heavily upon interactionist theory, surprisingly however she cites E. Goffman (considered by many as the/a principal author of the interactionist perspective) only once and never cites C.H. Cooley or G.H. Mead (to which many content as the founders of this perspective), whose theoretical insights, conveyed in the concept of the "looking glass self" (Cooley) and the text "Mind, Self, and Society" (Mead) respectively, constitute the core of DeNora's theoretical lens. Moreover, DeNora's analysis hints at the importance of the "power of music" whereby she fails to fully conceptualize what exactly she means by "power." Perhaps introducing Foucault (which she does not) may have bolstered her approach here.
To her credit however and despite the fact she seems to outright ignore the tenets of the principal authors of the interactionist perspective, she adequately develops a pretty solid interactionist theory of music, mapping out music's social role as a "technology of identity" that in turn facilitates the construction of the self.
In general, DeNora argues that the key to understanding this process lies in the social relations to which music is deployed. She empirically supports and substantiates this position through weaving in personal narrative, excerpts from in depth interviews, as well as participant observation, by which she demonstrates the ways in which music acts as an ordering device in modern (Western) societies (the title of her book is blatantly ethnocentric).
Nevertheless, through the above noted process, DeNora teases at the fundamental differences between modern musical culture and traditional musical culture, the difference she contends, rests on the relations of music's production.
Although theoretically weak at times (she could have included, Cooley, Mead, (more) Goffman, Blumer, Foucault, Marx, etc.) this text is a decent, albeit initial attempt at redirecting our sociological lens toward what many consider as a postmodern point of contention when studying the link between music, the self and society. These issues have yet to be adequately addressed in the growing body of the research literature. Future studies are indeed necessary to lend support to the claims and assertions (many of which are indeed supported by empirical research) she posits throughout this text.
I would recommend this text to anyone who has even a general interest in the sociology of music, as this book can be read as a sort of primer to the traditional perspectives of social scientific musical analysis (e.g. musicology - the historical and scientific study of music, ethnomusicology - the study of music as culture).
Some Suggested Readings
Adorno, T. 1973. The Philosophy of Modern Music. Seabury Press,
New York.
Becker, H. 1982. Art Worlds. University of California Press,
California.
Benjamin, W. 1986. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction, in Illuminations. Hartcourt Brace &
Company,NewYork.
Weber, M. 1958. The Rational and Social Foundations of Music.
Southern Illinois University Press.
Nice idea, but could go further.......2002-04-28
This is definitely an interesting and welcome attempt to look at some of the everyday musics of the modern West. The author seems to have overlooked the large literature on music in everyday human life outside the West, or in Western folk traditions. While there is no need to write comparatively, or even to cite that research much, the book might still be better informed by lessons learned there, both musical and methodological. As a result, the book, despite its interest, sometimes reinvents the wheel and is occasionally theoretically weak.
how people use music in their lives.......2001-05-07
This is an excellent study of how people use music to structure their lives. DeNora is interested in how people use music to create identities for themselves, change their mood, and structure their interactions with other. I was particularly fascinated by her remarks on the use of music in neonatal intensive care units to help the little ones stabilize their body states, and in her study of how aerobics instructor use different kinds of music to structure a workout. She also talks about how stores and malls use music to create an identity for the enterprise and to alter customer mood in a way that favors shopping.
Book Description
Originating in Japan early in the 1970s as a simple sing-along technology, karaoke has become a hybrid media form designed to integrate mass-mediated popular music, video images, computer graphics, and the live musical performance of its human users. Not only has karaoke become a multimillion-dollar entertainment industry, its varied uses have also evolved into diverse popular cultural and social practices among many people around the world. Based on a two-year ethnographic study, this book offers a penetrating analysis of how karaoke is used in the expression, maintenance, and (re)construction of social identity as part of the Chinese American experience. It also explores the theoretical implications of interaction between the media audience and karaoke as both an electronic communication technology and a cultural practice.
This book analyzes the social origins of karaoke and the dramaturgical characteristics of karaoke events, and explains how various musical genres are reframed as karaoke music. It also visits the numerous karaoke scenes in their natural context -- the sites of the actual consumption of media products, such as expensive private homes and fancy hotel ballrooms in the affluent suburbs of New Jersey, working-class restaurants and nightclubs in the multiethnic neighborhoods in Flushing, Queens, and Cantonese opera music clubs in New York's Chinatown. Finally, the book offers an intimate analysis of how karaoke has been adopted by several interpretive communities of first-generation Chinese immigrants not only as popular entertainment but also as a means to help (re)define their social identity and way of life.
Average customer rating:
- "using" the Beatles for his own fatuous nonsense
- A New Year's Gift to oneself and all....,
- This volume is life changing
- Who's Better Than The Beatles For Life's Role Models?
- Not Very Complex
|
The Beatles Way: Fab Wisdom for Everyday Life
Larry Lange
Manufacturer: Atria Books/Beyond Words
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
| Music
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
Popular
| Musical Genres
| Music
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
Rock
| Musical Genres
| Music
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Music
| Pop Culture
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Beatles
| Music
| Pop Culture
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Self-Help
| Health, Mind & Body
| Subjects
| Books
Personal Transformation
| Self-Help
| Health, Mind & Body
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Psychology & Counseling
| Health, Mind & Body
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside Entertainment Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Excellence in Business (3rd Edition)
-
Meet the Beatles: A Cultural History of the Band That Shook Youth, Gender, and the World
-
The Writer's Presence: A Pool of Readings
ASIN: 1582700613 |
Book Description
Thirty-one years after the Fab Four disbanded, Beatlemania continues in full swing. The group's latest CD, 1, is one of the fastest-selling records in history; their biography, Anthology, is a bestseller; and a new generation is falling under their spell. By analyzing the Beatles' extraordinary journey, Larry Lange has discerned specific principles that illustrate how to live more profound, richer, and happier lives. These principles include harnessing the power of dreaming, learning to set and meet goals, dealing with fear of the unknown, working as a team while remaining self-sufficient, keeping dreams fresh, and remaining open to spirituality and social responsibility. The book offers these principles of success and the exuberance of the Beatles as an alternative to traditional personal growth books.
Customer Reviews:
"using" the Beatles for his own fatuous nonsense.......2007-05-01
To attempt to reduce the genius of the Beatles to this new age, "live your dreams," sophmoric pablum is to demonstrate that you didn't "get" the Beatles at all. Think a bit on the John Lennon song, "God," written as the Beatles were breaking up. Even the Beatles -- who shared a love and inspiration most of us will never know -- could not hold it together. Like several other avatars through history, they gave those who were there an experience of the eternal and then shattered from the pressure of the demands made upon them. The thick apostles then ruin it. All they could leave us is the music -- lyrics and melody together than synergistically capture a certain energy -- but it's only a small taste of what they offered and what they meant. Mr. Lange's presentation demeans that experience -- he took his preconceived self-help template and squeezed Beatles lyrics and quotations into it. This book amounts to just yellow matter custard.
A New Year's Gift to oneself and all....,.......2003-11-05
No one could have written this book except someone who truly understood The Beatles' message of living life to the fullest.
Lange has the uncanny aility to share The Beatles as role models - so that all of us can discover the joy, hope, and sheer excitement hidden within our own lives - just waiting to be revealed.
The book has inspired me to take a good long look at my own life goals and spiritual beliefs - and lift them to a loftier place - just as The Beatles did during their decade of unprecedented success and influence.
I've read many, many, many self-help books - however, this one is a classic of the genre. I guarantee this superb little book will work like magic for you in your life.
This volume is life changing.......2003-05-10
I picked up this book quite by accident as I was shopping in a natural food store in London. I never tried many self-help-style books before - so my opinion was neither positive or negative. But I took a chance. I read this book in an afternoon (recently) and have re-read bits of it each day since. I carry it with me to read when I have a moment during the day. The principles are universal and can be applied to every area of life. My life was different the very first day I tried applying these principles. They are simple; not easy, but simple. If you wish to gain peace in your life and be more comfortable with yourself, others, and the universe, read this book and learn to apply its suggestions in your everyday living. This book is on my all-time great list -- I'm going to make sure I'm never without a copy. May it be a blessing to others the way it is to me.
Who's Better Than The Beatles For Life's Role Models?.......2003-02-22
Once in a while, a personal-growth book comes along like a breath of fresh air with a unique concept. "The Beatles Way" is one of those books. What better way to think about how we live our lives than using the Beatles as roles models? They lived every dream and had every success they could ever wish for. This book reveals the details on exactly how they did it - and how we can dream big and live big too. I'm completely a fan of The Beatles - and now - I'm a huge fan of "The Beatles Way." For a fun and "fab" live - get this book - it's a must-have.
Not Very Complex.......2003-02-12
I guess I'm in the minority, but I didn't really want a new age self-help book for how to get along with your co-workers and family. The Beatles meant bigger things to me about lifestyle and idealism--bigger and more complex than this book which even has a section about the importance of choosing good names for your ideas and products or whatever...it's okay--but it's not quite the depth I was looking for. I'd check out Derek Taylor's
It Was Twenty Years Ago Today, for a better taste of Beatle's philosophy.
Amazon.com
Most popular books about the Stalin era feature the big names and a firm narrative shape: Robert Conquest's The Great Terror; Alan Bullock's Hitler and Stalin. Some books yield their revelations at a glance, like the stunning The Commissar Vanishes: The Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin's Russia.
But scholar Sheila Fitzpatrick is famous for letting the common people and the facts speak for themselves, in all their complexity. Her new book on Soviet life in the 1930s--based on research in newly opened archives--does for urbanites what her Heldt Prizewinning Stalin's Peasants did for rural victims. The many witnesses in this fascinating horror story cast doubt on Stalin's notorious 1935 slogan "Life has become better, comrades; life has become more cheerful."
A comment made by a victim of Ivan the Terrible would be more apt: "We Russians don't need to eat; we eat one another and this satisfies us." Famine, caused by bad weather and worse policies, plagued the decade, and life became a chronic struggle to wrest crumbs from an incompetent bureaucracy. Stalin's sly methods of deflecting blame from the state onto allegedly disloyal citizens provoked orgies of denunciation (which could backfire on denouncers). A mad starch factory director forbade comrades to get shaves or haircuts at home--it would have been disloyal to the factory's hairdresser. One kid, Pavlik Morozov, reported his father for grain hoarding in 1937, was murdered by relatives, and became a national hero to kids. Andrei Sakharov's future spouse Elena Bonner was shocked at her 9-year-old brother's response to his father's arrest: "Look what these enemies of the people are like--some of them even pretend to be fathers." The celebrated Moscow Children's Theater put on The Squealer, a drama strikingly like Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront.
Fitzpatrick gives a sense of what it really was like to live under the satanic circus master Stalin: it was beyond Kafka, and it was bloody hard work. --Tim Appelo
Book Description
Here is a pioneering account of everyday life under Stalin, written by one of our foremost authorities on modern Russian history. Focusing on urban areas in the 1930s, Sheila Fitzpatrick shows that with the adoption of collectivization and the first Five-Year Plan, everyday life was utterly transformed. With the abolition of the market, shortages of food, clothing, and all kinds of consumer goods became endemic. As peasants fled the collectivized villages, major cities were soon in the grip of an acute housing crisis, with families jammed for decades in tiny single rooms in communal apartments, counting living space in square meters. It was a world of privation, overcrowding, endless queues, and broken families, in which the regime's promises of future socialist abundance rang hollowly. We read of a government bureaucracy that often turned everyday life into a nightmare, and of the ways that ordinary citizens tried to circumvent it, primarily by patronage and the ubiquitous system of personal connections known as blat. And we read of the police surveillance that was endemic to this society, and the waves of terror like the Great Purges of 1937, that periodically cast this world into turmoil. Fitzpatrick illuminates the ways that Soviet city-dwellers coped with this world, examining such diverse activities as shopping, traveling, telling jokes, finding an apartment, getting an education, landing a job, cultivating patrons and connections, marrying and raising a family, writing complaints and denunciations, voting, and trying to steer clear of the secret police. Based on extensive research in Soviet archives only recently opened to historians, this superb book illuminates the ways ordinary people tried to live normal lives under extraordinary circumstances.
Customer Reviews:
Everyday life and the state under Stalin.......2007-04-06
Sheila Fitzpatrick, specialist in the Stalin period of the USSR, has written a counterpart to her history of peasants and their lives in this era (Stalin's Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the Russian Village after Collectivization). Here, in "Everyday Stalinism", she chronicles the urban experience of life under Stalin during the 1930s, with all its paranoia, hardship and oddities.
The book is focused in particular on the relationship of daily life and the state, with relatively little attention for cultural history. However, making much use of the Harvard Project interviews with Soviet citizens from this period, she offers a compelling and fascinating view into the attitude of Soviet citizens towards the state, towards Stalin, and towards each other. Much more than just a tale of survival under threat of secret police, Fitzpatrick shows how people got by in terms of getting consumer goods, getting ahead, and getting even. Of course the Great Purges are given due attention, but what is particularly interesting is that in this book we see those events, as well as the earlier show trials, from the bottom up: not the political history of Stalin eliminating his enemies, but a struggle for power between the Party elites (largely received with disinterest by the general populace), and subsequently a series of rapid repressive maneouvres that descend onto the unsuspecting middle level.
Fitzpatrick pays excellent attention also to social policy and what effect this had on women, social and ethnic minorities, and so on. The USSR as an "affirmative action empire" has been well chronicled: The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939 (Wilder House Series in Politics, History, and Culture). Nevertheless, Fitzpatrick's overview is clear and cogent, and we get also get a good idea of the immense advances in literacy, cultural knowledge and general outlook that were made in roughly the period 1927-1937. Whereas in 1926 only 57% of those aged between 9 and 49 were literate, in 1939 81% of the whole population was literate. Similarly, the entire mass of the population learned basic culture such as appreciating poetry, washing regularly, using soap and towels, not leaving cigarette butts everywhere and not spitting on the floor, etc.
Striking is the amount of critical letters and appeals that people kept sending to Party and Politburo leaders in the (often, but not always vain) hope of redress of grievances or changes in policy. This was already a set tradition dating back to Czarist times, but was maintained during the Revolution and post-Revolutionary period in the form of public debate in leftist papers and letters to Lenin (see Voices of Revolution, 1917). This gives us a good indication however of the public opinion in the Stalinist days, to which Fitzpatrick usefully adds the NKVD reports of overheard conversations and the like. This surprisingly indicates that skepticism towards Stalin himself as well as the general system was reasonably widespread, despite the "cult of the personality".
Overall, this is a well written and interesting history of urban life in the Soviet Union during the 1930s. It must be emphasized though (as this is not directly apparent from the book description) that it only deals with urban life, and only the 1930s. Neither WWII nor the post-War Stalinist period is discussed.
Must read.......2007-02-13
If you have an interest in Stalin and the 1930's, which include the purges, this book is a must for you. For the most part I study the Military and Political history of the early Soviet Union and I had this book on my shelf for years before I finally decided to read it. But once I began I was amazed at myself that I had waited so long to finally dive into this book! The author has really done her research and it shows!
The reader will get a much better and broader understanding of what life was like in the 1930's and how a new state was coming into its own. Why certain groups or 'classes' were being targeted by the state and what happened to them. How some changed their entire lives just to get away from the OGPU and later NKVD. And interestingly enough the policies implemented by the state worked against making it a safer place. As they aggravated one group after another through trials and forced movements they made enemies where in the past there might not have been any. It began to dawn on the government that these people would only seek vengeance once they were freed from punishment and it also created the idea that these people would be enemies for life. This, to a certain extent, explains why during the "Great Purge" which started in 1937 those released from GULag camps or special settlements, etc, were once again picked up and tried and sent to either prison or were executed.
The examples the author draws upon are an excellent representation of the time period and people's thoughts recount what they felt and desired while living through this turbulent, to say the least, decade. The one aspect of the Stalinist period that should be kept in mind, and appears throughout the book, is that no one was really safe in this time. From Communist officials who were being denounced by the hundreds to the regular man on the street who could be denounced because his apartment was bigger than his neighbors, or NKVD officials, one of whom a week before committing suicide visited and drank with the families of people who were denounced and he had to arrest and lastly even to Stalin's inner circle which witnessed the likes of Kaganovich losing his brother and Molotov his wife. A great contribution to the literature on Soviet Union under Stalin!
Impressed so far.......2007-02-11
Clearly it is well researched and (notwithstanding the author's Introduction) cuts through a lot of the politicised waffle that tends to accompany other books dealing with this period. You get an idea of the human and personal dynamics that were operating at the time. In short, the insight gained is sometimes surprising even when you think you know a lot about this period of history, i.e. the October Revolution and socialist construction. Only half way through the book as a matter of fact but you can tell from the outset that what you're reading is a study of substance that genuinely serves to inform the reader. I would say the author is one who is prepared to let facts speak for themselves.
Clear, concise, filled with information.......2006-08-10
This is a good, necessary, and essential book. It is compact and precise. Its aim is to provide massive information about Stalinist Soviet Union in the 1930s. It does so not by the analysis of high politics or the significant political events, but through a depiction of everyday life of urban inhabitants of the Soviet Union during these years.
Fitzpatrick tries to remain neutral, but so many of the disastorous conditions she records were clearly brought on by the Stalin bureaucracy's fear, its fear of workers, its fear of the intellectuals, its fear of those who held positions under Tsarism, its fear of those who had belonged to opposition factions in the Communist party, and fear of itself.
Whether what she provides is "new" is irrelevant except to the academically twisted. What she does is provide the realities of life in the USSR in those years as personally experienced whether in the cold, rancorous, barracks and apartments filled with four or five families of the plebian cities, or the luxurious dachas of the rising bureaucracy.
The strength of this book is its compactness and clarity and its lack of digressions. Fitzpatrick produces a very high amount of understandable information per page.
The one weaknesses of the book is that in order to do this, she tends to assume the reader's knowledge of Soviet history in the late 1920s and early 30s, particularly, "the cultural revolution," though many, especially popular, readers may know little or nothing about this. Perhaps this just invites the reader to explore the work of Fitzpatrick and her colleagues on these questions.
Nothing very much "new". .......2006-06-27
Professor Fitzpatrick has chosen to write a History of Stalin's Soviet Union during the 1930s (that is, at the height of the Great Purges) by focusing on doings at the private life sphere of common Soviet citizens of the time. Problem is, after we have read the book, we realize we've been told about the same old issues: de-kulakization, collectivization, shortages, queues, Yezhov, social mobility through the Party apparatus. The problem being, perhaps, that the whole book was based on a flimsy foundation, that of the opposition between the "private" & the "public" sphere, when actually, in the early Soviet Union, there was no "private" sphere at all, private life merged with public life entirely - something Professor Fitzpatrick acknowledge at the conclusions, but fails to draw the conclusion that the opposition between the private and the public is an historical construction, not an ontology. Therefore the book is informed and readable, but offers nothing that is altogether new.
Book Description
The notion of "everyday life" is ubiquitous in the contemporary intellectual scene. While scholars frequently use this concept to signal a romantic return to the "common people," Berger and Del Negro are among the first to subject the term to theoretical scrutiny. This book explores how everyday life has been used in three intellectual traditions (American folklore, British cultural studies and French everyday life theory) and suggests a program for revitalizing anti-elitist approaches to culture.
The book draws on studies of performance from around the globe, including the authors' work on heavy metal in the U.S. and the Italian passeggiata (ritual promenade), to explore the term "identity." Moving beyond truisms that depict performance as a medium for the loss of self or folklore as means of expressing identity, the authors explore the interplay of culture and agency in performance to illuminate the complex dynamics of reflexivity, identity and self. This book will speak to anyone interested in power and aesthetics in performance.
Book Description
Wes Avram's charming book, Where the Light Shines Through, insists that ''the adventure of knowing God is given its texture by a full, divine sort of sensuality'' and that we can experience God in the ordinary as well as the extraordinary. Including stories from his own life and ministry and grounding his reflection in Scripture, Avram canvases a range of human experiences from Christmas pageants to jury duty. He closes with an appeal to the church to stay tuned to the Spirit in its midst, as well as a note on the way preaching unites the realms of Christian experience: soul, world, and church. Winning and wise, Where the Light Shines Through will draw all readers looking for new ways to see and hear God in the everyday.
Customer Reviews:
It's OK Not to Know Everything.......2006-10-12
Wes Avram is a Presbyterian pastor who also teaches preaching at Yale Divinity School. This thoughtful book developed out of a series of sermons on practical application of the Christian gospel to daily life in the post-modern era.
It appeared from the sub-title to be about perceiving God in daily life, perhaps a practical guide to daily meditation in a busy life. And to some extent that is the focus. But it involved more than that. Avram deals reflectively with possibilities for interpreting the core meaning of the Good News, and practical implications in real-life situations. He builds his topics around anecdotes that arose in his experience with people.
Avram also ends with what he calls an Epilogue, which is an interpretation of what preaching is and how to approach it. He sees the art of preaching as a practical engagement of the ultimate, a mediation of the reality behind the visible activities and feelings and challenges of life. The preacher is seen as the humble focus for a divine word.
He emphasizes that the preacher has an awesome, humbling role, and realizes - or should realize - that any value in his words is beyond himself, but arise as he/she becomes the channel of divine happening in the spoken word. That somehow the human words, the result of study and preparation, of prayer and uncertainty, of awareness of need, becomes a word from God when proclaimed. He concludes that the preacher gains an assurance and confidence from knowledge that his own efforts and words are not the focus and purpose of his task.
Rather his words point to the reality of the Divine which underlies and involves everything in our lives. These philosophical insights, fully practical in implication, were a bonus in an already valuable collection of reflections on regular events and life-challenges that take on ultimate meaning and value when seen in terms of the Word of God, the life of Jesus Christ.
Avram assures us in a new, practical manner that the Incarnation message is still current and practical. It just gets obscured sometimes by the church and all its in-talk and organized self-sufficiency. You don't have to be a preacher to enjoy this book. It provides a practical, workable philosophy grounded in the full awareness of human inability to master the ultimate.
Avram assures us it's OK not to know everything! The reader will experience an inspiring reminder of the immensity of God's involvement in our complex modern, changing, confusing world.
Gracefully Sensitive.......2006-02-10
"Where The Light Shines Through" is an anthology of sermons designed to assist thoughtful Christians as they consider how God is present in their lives. The title fits the collection well, for each message sheds uncommon light upon our common lives.
Wesley D. Avram is a preacher who has served as a college chaplain and as the pastor of a large suburban Chicago congregation. He is the pastor-elect of the 3500-member Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, on Philadelphia's Main Line, one of the denominations' twenty largest. Avram will be leaving the academic world (he is currently Clement-Muehl Assistant Professor of Communications at Yale Divinity School) but taking with him to the parish an approach to the faith that is deep-rooted in Scripture and full-leafed in articulation.
Unlike the "don't worry - be happy" style of preachers, Avram does not subscribe to quick, easy and pat answers to life's imponderables. Indeed, he expresses the rich ambiguities of Christian faithfulness in ways that are so articulate one might be tempted to call them poetic. They certainly are gracefully sensitive and allow the listener to think along with Avram as he thinks out loud. For example, in speaking of the providence of God he writes, "So let there never be preached a theology so glib as to imply that as long as Air Jesus has got the ball, it's okay if we're down in the fourth period. For the waters of God's providential care are much deeper, choppier, and more life-giving. For rather than simply winning at the buzzer, God's sovereignty sometimes changes the game." (Page 29). When one is struggling with a difficult personal situation, this kind of a message offers a large measure of integrity as well as hope.
Avram explores some of the hard realities of life, with engaging titles, such as "9/12 Living in a 9/11 World". He responds to them with wisdom, notably this: "We are called to a kind of living that is attentive to the world around us in ways we just can't sustain without God." (Page 42). He honors his listeners' intelligence and engages his listeners' feelings.
Throughout his sermons, Avram recounts personal stories that are accessible to the reader, from the circus, to the annual nativity pageant, to the world of advertising. One can picture the congregations who first heard these sermons being uplifted and supported by their lyrical messages, whether on the campuses of Bates College and Yale Divinity School, or in the sanctuary at First Presbyterian Church, Wilmette. Indeed, the messages are finely tuned to reach a wide-ranging, attentive audience.
Here is a people's preacher with a pastor's heart. Throughout this volume, one gets a strong sense of what a joy it would be to hear Dr. Avram's sermons week by week, and an equally strong sense that the congregation at Bryn Mawr will be in very good hands indeed.
Average customer rating:
|
Ambient Intelligence in Everyday Life: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
Manufacturer: Springer Verlag
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Artificial Intelligence
| Computer Science
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
Theory of Computing
| Artificial Intelligence
| Computer Science
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Computer Science
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
Software Development
| Software Design, Testing & Engineering
| Programming
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Programming
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Networks, Protocols & APIs
| Networking
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Software
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
ASIN: 3540377859 |
Product Description
Ambient Intelligence refers to smart electronic environments that are sensitive and responsive to the presence of people. Since its introduction in the late 1990s, this vision has matured, having become quite influential in the development of new concepts for information processing as well as combining multi-disciplinary fields including computer science, electrical engineering, industrial design, architectural design, user interfaces, and cognitive science.
Originating from the Workshop on Ambient Intelligence in Everyday Life held at the Miramar Congress Center, San Sebastian, Spain, in July 2005, this book is devoted to the cognitive aspects of ambient intelligence. The 15 carefully reviewed and revised articles presented are organized in topical sections on human-centric computing, ambient interfaces, and architectures for ambient intelligence.
Product Description
Inspired by the Celtic circles of ancient Scotland, Bonnie paints a musical picture through time, joining the heavens and earth to the cycles of everyday life. Performed on Scottish fiddle with gold medal piper Eric Rigler on the Great Highland bagpipe, Scottish smallpipes and uilleann pipes. Also accompanied by guitar, Celtic harp, viola da gamba, hammered dulcimer, bass and bodhran. Includes North Highland tunes from The Patrick McDonald Collection, 1784, pipe marches, strathspeys, jigs and reels, laments and traditional favorites.
Books:
- Standing in the Shadows of Motown: The Life and Music of Legendary Bassist James Jamerson
- Style and Idea: Selected Writings
- Suzuki Violin School: Violin Part, vol. 1 (Suzuki Violin School, Violin Part)
- Teaching Reading Sourcebook: Sourcebook for Kindergarten Through Eight Grade (Core Literacy Training Series)
- The Beatles - Complete Scores
- The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz
- The Complete Idiot's Guide to Playing Drums, 2nd Edition (The Complete Idiot's Guide)
- The Culture Clash: A Revolutionary New Way to Understanding the Relationship Between Humans and Domestic Dogs
- The Encyclopedia Of Guitar Picture Chords In Color (Guitar Chord Books in Color)
- The Fender Stratocaster Handbook: How To Buy, Maintain, Set Up, Troubleshoot, and Modify Your Strat
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- The Knowledge-Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation
- Professional Dreamer: 6 Simple Steps That Turn Dreams Into Reality
- Harris Arkansas Manufacturers Directory 2005
- Hypnotic Writing: How to Seduce and Persuade Customers with Only Your Words
- On Chesil Beach
- The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud
- Meditations In My Favourite Places In Southern Africa: A Travelogue for Inner and Outer Journeys
- The Complete and Easy Guide to Social Security, Healthcare Rights, and Government Benefits
- Intermediate Accounting with Coach CD-ROM, PowerWeb: Financial Accounting, Alternate Exercises &
- Write Your Own Business Contracts: What Your Attorney Won't Tell You
How to Be a Monastic And Not Leave Your Day Job: An Invitation to Oblate Life (Voice from the Monastery)
The Benedictine Handbook
Benedictine Daily Prayer: A Short Breviary
Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict (Second Edition)
Finding Sanctuary: Monastic Steps for Everyday Life
