Christo & Jeanne-Claude: Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-1995 (Jumbo Series)

Book Description

Reconsidering the Object of Art examines a generally underexposed (and therefore often misunderstood) period in contemporary art and highlights artists whose practices have inspired much of the most significant art being produced today. It illustrates and discusses many crucial, ground-breaking works that have not been seen within their proper historical context, if they have been individually seen at all.

By 1969 such artists as Michael Asher, John Baldessari, Marcel Broodthaers, Dan Graham, Douglas Huebler, Joseph Kosuth, Lawrence Weiner and others had begun to create works using a variety of media that sought to reevaluate certain fundamental premises about the formal, material, and contextual definitions of art. This first comprehensive overview of Conceptual art in English documents the work of fifty-five artists, work that marked a significant rupture with traditional forms and concepts of painting, sculpture, photography, and film.

Also included are essays that elucidate the significant aesthetic issues that gave rise, in both America and Europe, to the highly individual, but related, modes of Conceptual art. Lucy Lippard (art historian) writes on the broader sociopolitical milieu in which this work was made; Stephen Melville (Professor of Art History, Ohio State University) probes the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of Conceptual art; and Jeff Wall (artist) discusses the relationship between Conceptual art and photography. Anne Rorimer and Ann Goldstein (curators of the exhibition the book accompanies) respectively take up the role of language in this work, and discuss each of the artists.

Copublished with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

Customer Reviews:

best exhibit ever devote to conceptualism..........2003-07-26

...and considering when the book came out, and what so much contemporary art now looks like, I would not be suprised if a copy of this book is laying around the studio of many of the hot youngsters of the art scene.

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On Nature and Language
Noam Chomsky
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 052101624X

Book Description

In On Nature and Language Noam Chomsky develops his thinking on the relation between language, mind, and brain, integrating current research in linguistics into the burgeoning field of neuroscience. Following a lucid introduction is a penetrating interview with Chomsky, in which he provides the clearest and most elegant introduction to current theory available. It makes his Minimalist Program accessible to all. The volume concludes with an essay on the role of intellectuals in society and government. A significant landmark in the development of linguistic theory, On Nature and Language will be welcomed by students and researchers in theoretical linguistics, neurolinguistics, cognitive science and politics, as well as anyone interested in the development of Chomsky's thought. Noam Chomsky is Professor of Linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Chomsky has written and lectured extensively on philosophy, intellectual history, and international affairs. His works include The Architecture of Language, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax; Cartesian Linguistics; Language and Mind; American Power and the New Mandarins; At War with Asia; For Reasons of State; Peace in the Middle East? Reflections on Language; Rules and Representations; The Culture of Terrorism; Rethinking Camelot; JFKm the Vietnam War and US Political Culture; World Orders, Old and New and The Common Good.

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Average customer rating:

Great content and amazing layout design

Yves Klein : Long Live the Immaterial
Yves Klein , Gilbert Perlein , Alain Buisine , Bruno Cora , and Nicolas Bourriaud
Manufacturer: Delano Greenridge Editions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Yves Klein

ASIN: 0929445082

Customer Reviews:

Great content and amazing layout design.......2001-03-06

Wonderful display of Klein's work and great indepth content. A must buy for a fan of Yves Klein!

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A must-have

Rudolf Stingel

Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0300124244

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A must-have.......2007-09-13

Rudolf Stingel has a rare combination of intelligence and technical mastery. This book showcases his work since the mid-80's in all of its versatile forms - from somewhat mechanical pattern-paintings to detailed self-portraits that look like grainy photographs at first glance. The book itself is beautifully presented with nice plates and sharp essays. The essays could be expanded and are a bit opaque in places, but this is a refreshing change from typical essays in monographs which tend to be overly descriptive or comparative and completely lacking in argument. This is a great book all around.

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review of Minimalism (Themes and Movements)

Minimalism (Themes & Movements)
James Meyer
Manufacturer: Phaidon Press
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ASIN: 071484523X

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Part of Phaidon's Themes and Movements series, Minimalism offers the first straightforward and useful summary of the output and outlook of the artists associated with minimalism in its heyday, as well as its subsequent development into more nuanced visual forms and its relationship to postmodernism. Editor James Meyer is a specialist who has written extensively on Carl Andre, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, and Sol LeWitt, four of the seminal minimalists (the fifth is Robert Morris). Despite the intellectual thorniness of this art, Meyer avoids the turgidity that marks much of the writing associated with it.

Tracing the origins of minimalism primarily to Frank Stella's "Black Paintings" of 1959, Meyer outlines the shifting, often warring definitions of this new kind of art. Once sculptors Andre and Judd had made their mark, there was doubt that painters could be minimalists. Brice Marden and Robert Ryman made the cut because their work was believed to be purely about the process of painting. Interestingly, although this was overwhelmingly a male club, curators also initially embraced the work of several women artists (including Agnes Martin and Anne Truitt) who retained such minimalist no-noes as irregular, handmade marks, color that could be perceived independently of form, and a belief in transcendent meaning.

The 141 pages of color and black-and-white photographs (including rare glimpses of early work by some artists) and a generous assembly of texts by such key commentators as Michael Fried, Barbara Rose, Rosalind Krauss, and the artists themselves (including previously unpublished or hard-to-find material) make this volume indispensable for anyone seriously interested in contemporary art. --Cathy Curtis

Book Description

For more than 20 years, Gregory Battcock's Minimal Art: A Critical Anthology has been the book on this deceptively simple approach to art-making, which sought to remove any trace of the artist's hand or emotion from the work. (Detractors naturally found it ludicrous that such reductive sculpture, often consisting of no more than a few basic modular units attached to the wall or placed on the floor, generated such a voluminous and dense stream of critical analysis, beginning in the mid-1960s.)Part of Phaidon's Themes and Movements series, Minimalism offers the first straightforward and useful summary of the output and outlook of the artists associated with minimalism in its heyday, as well as its subsequent development into more nuanced visual forms and its relationship to postmodernism. Editor James Meyer is a specialist who has written extensively on Carl Andre, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, and Sol LeWitt, four of the seminal minimalists (the fifth is Robert Morris). Despite the intellectual thorniness of this art, Meyer avoids the turgidity that marks much of the writing associated with it. Tracing the origins of minimalism primarily to Frank Stella's "Black Paintings" of 1959, Meyer outlines the shifting, often warring definitions of this new kind of art. Once sculptors Andre and Judd had made their mark, there was doubt that painters could be minimalists. Brice Marden and Robert Ryman made the cut because their work was believed to be purely about the process of painting. Interestingly, although this was overwhelmingly a male club, curators also initially embraced the work of several women artists (including Agnes Martin and Anne Truitt) who retained such minimalist no-noes as irregular, handmade marks, color that could be perceived independently of form, and a belief in transcendent meaning.The 141 pages of color and black-and-white photographs (including rare glimpses of early work by some artists) and a generous assembly of texts by such key commentators as Michael Fried, Barbara Rose, Rosalind Krauss, and the artists themselves (including previously unpublished or hard-to-find material) make this volume indispensable for anyone seriously interested in contemporary art. --Cathy Curtis

Customer Reviews:

review of Minimalism (Themes and Movements).......2000-08-19

A glorious book combining a multitude of exquisite images of important Minimalist works with an unusual book design that includes overlapping fonts, and font sizes that progressively downsize as the reader moves through the text. (The book designers must have had a ball with this job.)

The first section is loosely defined as a history of the development and basic tenets of Minimalism. An idea that weaves throughout much of the work termed Minimal is the use of serial geometry, industrial materials, and factory production methods that deny the centuries-old tradition of art as a unique, hand-crafted object that cannot be replicated. Although Minimalism is no longer avant-garde, its influences are felt today in Conceptual and process art, as well as Neo-Geo. This section goes beyond the traditional survey that simply is a factual list of themes or ideas utilized by each particular artist to also include critical response to the work. Minimalism is broadly characterized as a response to and reaction against the subjectivity, gestural mark-making, and private vision of Abstract Expressionism.

The bulk of the book, the second section, is given to reproductions of the works by the Minimalist artists and those often associated with Minimalism. Large photos are accompanied by captions that describe that particular piece.

Book Description

In Six Years Lucy R. Lippard documents the chaotic network of ideas that has been labeled conceptual art. The book is arranged as an annotated chronology into which is woven a rich collection of original documents--including texts by and taped discussions among and with the artists involved and by Lippard, who has also provided a new preface for this edition. The result is a book with the character of a lively contemporary forum that offers an invaluable record of the thinking of the artists--a historical survey and essential reference book for the period.

Customer Reviews:

As time goes by.......2007-05-14

I lived through this era and my original 1972 copy is well used and full of loose pages. If you want to find out how the tracking of turtles is art, or how Lawrence Weiner came to write phrases on walls as his art work or simply how the synergy of people working with ideas about process as an artmaking technique came to rule this is an valuable piece of first hand reporting. Looking to explain Sol Le Witt to my college students on his recent death this book gave me samples of his interactive drawings they could try.

An important contibution to modernist aesthetics........1999-01-15

I first read this book about twenty years ago. I am glad to see that there is a new edition. It had a major impact on my development as an artist. The author discusses the trend called "conceptual art" which flowered in the time period mentioned in the title (late 60's through early 70's). These artists rejected the craft of art and the creation of objects themselves seeking instead something more fundamental. Ms. Lippard calls this "resonance" and uses descriptions of various pieces to explore this concept. Though "conceptual art" has long since passed by, the analysis in this book is still current and applies more than ever in our "post-modernist" period.

The Minimalist Program (Current Studies in Linguistics)

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Beware of theorists who claim to have all the answers
fascinating....
Fiction Can Be Fun
Pish posh
What every linguist needs to read....

The Minimalist Program (Current Studies in Linguistics)
Noam Chomsky
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
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ASIN: 0262531283

Book Description

The Minimalist Program consists of four recent essays that attempt to situate linguistic theory in the broader cognitive sciences. In these essays the minimalist approach to linguistic theory is formulated and progressively developed. Building on the theory of principles and parameters and, in particular, on principles of economy of derivation and representation, the minimalist framework takes Universal Grammar as providing a unique computational system, with derivations driven by morphological properties, to which the syntactic variation of languages is also restricted.

Within this theoretical framework, linguistic expressions are generated by optimally efficient derivations that must satisfy the conditions that hold on interface levels, the only levels of linguistic representation. The interface levels provide instructions to two types of performance systems, articulatory-perceptual and conceptual- intentional. All syntactic conditions, then, express properties of these interface levels, reflecting the interpretive requirements of language and keeping to very restricted conceptual resources.

The Essays
Principles and Parameters Theory.
Some Notes on Economy of Derivation and Representation.
A Minimalist Program for Linguistic Theory.
Categories and Transformations in a Minimalist Framework.

Customer Reviews:

Beware of theorists who claim to have all the answers.......2007-01-30

Chomsky's theories are complex, but so is the subject matter he deals with. He takes simple sentences of English (and, more importantly, sentences which are NOT part of English) as empirical evidence w.r.t. how the computation of human language works. It is well worth any scholar's (or amateur's) time to criticize his theorizing if he or she thinks a criticism is in order. But there is a right and a wrong way to do this, and unfortunately, people often do it the wrong way. The right way involves dealing with the subject in all of its complexity, and takes far more intellectual energy.

To take an example of the kind of work Chomsky tries to do, consider these sentences (an asterisk indicates a sentence that no native speaker of English would accept as part of his language).

1a) It seems that John is tired.
1b) *It seems John to be tired.
2a) John seems to be tired.
2b) *John seems that is tired.

As speakers of a language, we combine words into sentences in various ways. But there is no a priori reason why (1b) and (2b) shouldn't be acceptable parts of our language. Similar distinctions are pervasive throughout all human languages. The goal of Chomsky's theory is to figure out why the ill-formed sentences are not part of our language. That is, how does our brain combine words to adequately and automatically pair sound to meaning, and why are some ways acceptable and others not?

Keep in mind, any reasonably intelligent person can come up with simple or complex ad hoc rules to account for the distinctions in (1) and (2) above. I could, for example, say something along the lines of:

3) A finite verb needs a subject, and a noun phrase must be the subject of a finite verb.

Ignoring the enormous number of difficulties a statement like (3) would face, there is nothing in (3) which explains why it, and not some other rule (such as its converse) should be the appropriate way to combine words. Actually, Chomsky's earlier works focused on doing just this: figuring out what kinds of rules adequately describe language.

In more recent works, however, such as The Minimalist Program (MP), the goal is far more ambitious: to find the fewest and simplest set of operations which can derive the structures of human language. In MP, roughly, these rules are basically Select (choose some words), Merge (combine them), and Delete (remove anything not needed for understanding the sentence). What is often seen as Chomsky trying to "fix" his theories is really his trying to simplify and simplify the generalizations he (and other researchers) comes up with.

But language is complicated, and that is an empirical fact. It shouldn't be surprising that the computation the brain uses to produce and understand language is a complex bit of machinery. The Minimalist Program is staggeringly complicated, but in it, Chomsky is able to show just how far a few simple combinatory processes can go.

The right way to criticize Chomsky is to come up with viable alternatives to the problems he presents. There are scholars who do this from many fronts, roughly categorizable into two groups: the generativists and the functionalists. The generativists share Chomsky's belief that the brain is equipped with a specific mechanism for producing and and understanding language. The non-Chomsky generativists simply disagree w.r.t. how that mechanism works. Frameworks under this category include Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG), Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG), and Tree-Adjoining Grammar (TAG). There are others. The second group feels that language is part of a more general cognitive mechanism. They have developed frameworks such as Discourse-Functional Grammar, Cognitive Grammar, and Construction Grammar.

While most scholars who have to take a side on the matter feel very strongly that their position is the closest to answering the most important questions, few would claim that there is anything fundamentally wrong with inquiring into any framework. Making various assumptions and testing differing hypotheses is bound to contribute to our knowledge of how language works. More often than not, different theories end up helping each other and/or converging on similar conclusions.

If you care about the matter, though, than it is important to consider what it is that you want a theory of language to do. We understand very little about how the brain works, so, at this point, Chomksyan theory is not the place to turn if you want to find a way to, say, learn a second language more quickly. But no one (except some unfair critics) ever said that Chomsky's theories were supposed to be able to do that. They are theories of the mind and how it works, not pedagogical theories.

One critic below claims that MP only accounts for 63% of English syntax. Ignoring the problem of how he could have possibly come up with such a number, one must be wary of anyone who claims have all the answers: no one does. There have been fantastically thorough descriptions of language, but no serious scholar would claim to have figured out everything or even most things. For those who actually read the Minimalist Program, they will find it abound with Chomsky's caveats: he claims over and over again that he does not have all the answers, that the details of language are not completely-understood, and that there is still a lot of work to be done. That being said, the minimalists do often have less than satisfying solutions to even the simplest constructions. But the careful reader will notice that this is not because they are foolish or ignorant, but because they are giving themselves a lot less machinery to work with. This goes back to my earlier point: anyone can describe a problem or come up with various solutions, but it is a far more difficult thing to come up with a simple architecture which describes the complex details of language in general terms. The complication of the MP is that they start with the bare necessity of conception (we interpret language mentally, we speak language physically, and we combine a finite set of words into an infinite number of sentences), and try to strip away as many ad hoc rule systems as possible.

To address some of the specific criticisms listed below:
1. "Chomsky's theories don't hold up in computers"
To what extant? Chomsky's phrase structure has been mostly successful in computer applications, and many computational linguists have used his ideas to create parsers of all kinds. The fact that they don't hold up in any sort "direct transfer" IS due to the fact that we have yet to program a human brain. We are also unable to make machines that see the way we do or hear the way we do. The critics have to concede this point: we have not been able to simulate or program a human brain. Not the Chomskyans, not the critics. The argument that a theory of the mind must hold in artificial computers crucially assumes that that we understand how to program computers as sophisticated as our brain. But we don't. When we come up with a computer that can learn language by watching and listening to human beings (like a child), a similar argument would hold a lot more weight.

2. "Chomsky's theories have proven useless to computational linguistics and artificial intelligence, and thus have implications for nothing."
Ignoring the validity of the premise, who ever claimed that science's goal was to facilitate immediate technology. In this case, Chomsky has never claimed that all the answers have been found, so how exactly is it supposed to have created "magical machines" by now? The implications are supposed to be for learnability, Plato's problem of acquisition (see e.g. Chomsky's "Language and Problems of Knowledge," which discusses Plato's view that language was too complex for children to learn, so they must be born with linguistic knowledge; Plato concluded something along the lines of reincarnation, but the point is the same), and the biology of human beings that allows us to invariably learn the language of our environment without really trying while no other animal, no matter how hard it tries, can quite break the code (even signing apes are only doing something on par with what we (humans) do with a phrase book in a foreign country). Claiming a theory (ANY theory) to be moot because of its lack of technological implementability is on par with criticizing Newton's theory of gravity because he failed to build a spaceship.

3. "None of Chomsky's theories have a scientifically verifiable basis"
Except that they do. For example, he might claim that if X is true, no human language should permit some construction Y. This is done over and over, for example on page 288 where he claims that expletives failing to force agreement on a finite verb should co-occur with an expletive associate which DOES force agreement. In English, for example, the sentence in (4) below is the evidence:

4a) There seem to be some mice in here.
4b) *There seems to be some mice in here.
4c) There seems to be a mouse in here.

(4a) and (4c) show agreement with the associates some mice, a mouse and not with the expletive there. (4b) is ill-formed because seems is not the third-person plural form of the verb, but the associate is third-person plural. If Chomsky's claim is right, linguists with knowledge of various language would need to check to see how the analogues of the constructions of (4) work in their language. If his prediction turns out to be false (e.g. some language which normally has verbal agreement has expletives and no agreement with the associate), the theory is updated to account for the new data. This is, you'll observe, the scientific method; and no theory is ever proven more than tentatively. That is, science dictates that every theory is subject to revision if new data calls it into question. Critics who make remarks such as these are presumably referring to technological verification, but technology is a concept which should be kept distinct from science. I can create technology (e.g. a bucket of water) without ever doing science, and I can do science (e.g. dropping objects of various weights to see if weight affects the speed the object falls) without ever creating any technology. "Verification" in generative linguistics amounts to seeing how generalizations hold across different languages/dialects/constructions.

4. "His grammars are meaningless to normal people, and thus entirely useless."
This, of course, assumes that the benchmark of an adequate theory is its "meaning" to normal people (whoever those people might be). Pedagogical research is important for its own purposes and perhaps more widely applicable to more concrete problems, but beware of criticisms which amount to: "Einstein's theory of space-time is useless. He has yet to build us a time machine or slow down time or let us travel faster than light or through worm holes. Further, his physics haven't done the least bit of good for athletes or kept us from dying when we fall off buildings. His theory is as abstract as it is useless." Keep science and application distinct.

If you want to criticize Chomsky on his own level, start reading some of the above theories (or one of many others I did not name) or even make one of your own, joining the league of brilliant scholars who do more than name call. If you want to work on improving Chomsky's theories, join the league of brilliant scholars who are employed in this difficult task. If you choose to remain on the sidelines or be an amateur enthusiast, remember to keep science and technology separate, and to evaluate theories with regards to what they are actually supposed to account for. Otherwise, join the group of anti-Newtonists who said that the apple fell to the ground because that was its proper place.

fascinating...........2003-11-23

This is a very interesting text. Chomsky, asks the following question in his "Minimalist Program": Suppose that we do have a basic language faculty (inherent in all people and by nature--very creative mental faculty), then what can we say about this system? How well designed is it? Can we ask deeper questions about the mind? What is the fundamental nature of human intellectual capacities? Although these of questions might be a bit premature to even pose, Chomsky gives some fascinating responses to these questions.
This book, not only summarizes some previous work, but it also breaks new ground as well. I would suggest it to anyone who is interested in the philosophical and linguistic questions of the mind and language. The only thing one should remember is that the text will be incomprehensible if he/she doesn't have a very strong background in linguistics (esp Chap 4!). If not, there are prep books that will help you understand the basic underlying concepts in the Minimalist Program. Also, Chomsky gives a lot of interviews where he explains, in lay terms, what his work is dealing with.

Lastly, regarding the other reviews, please stick to criticizing the book, and not the author. If one disagrees with what's being said, then refute the argument in an intelligble manner. Don't resort to childish name-calling, bashing and other foolish activities.

Fiction Can Be Fun.......2003-10-19

Minimalism, like GB and Perameters, is yet another figment of Chomsky's imagination - much like his idea that McDonald's, Israel, and the American government are out to poison him.

Chomsky's theories are to Linguistics what Creationism is to Real Science. You start with your conclusion ("language is binary!" or "grammar is universal!") and then you come up with arguments that will support your conclusion while at the same time ignoring the enormity of evidence that refutes it.

On a lighter note, Chomsky's theories have consistantly failed to contribute anything viable to linguistics, technology, or humankind for the last 40 years. In this, his 6th or 7th infallible theory, Chomsky has decided to downsize his program in the hope that it will all somehow miraculously become correct.

Although Chomsky calls his program "minimalist", it is anything but. Chomsky's Minimalism is a hodgepodge mixture of about 119 individual theorums which bare no thread of coherence, and yet still only manage to describe about 63% of English. In spite of this, he still claims his model of Syntax is "universal" and applies to all languages. But let's face the facts.

- Chomsky's Syntactic models don't hold up in computers. Not in 1960s computers, not in today's computers. Blame it on semantics, blame it on parole, results are inevitably the same: crash, crash, crash.

- Chomsky's syntactic structures crash because they don't exist. An arbitrary idea rooted in a concept that doesn't exist can't work. Because it doesn't exist. Chomsky can blame this on "untestability" all he wants, but the fact remains that every theory he's come up with has proved completely useless to both computational linguistics and artificial intelligence, and thus has implications for nothing.

- None of Chomsky's theories have a scientifically verifiable basis either, so he's never actually "discovered" anything. He's simply made up imaginary processes, designated them with terms he finds pleasing (e.g. "percolation", "pied-piping") and passed them off as linguistic truths. In the process, all he's done is invent a fantasy world full of abstract and 'conveniently opaque' terminology that allows Mitniks to pose as specialists in this or that field of his imaginary science.

- That being said, none of Chomsky's programs are the least bit useful in teaching or acquiring language. His grammars are meaningless to normal people, and thus entirely useless.

In conclusion, given the fact that language can't be stuffed into arbitrary mathematic formulas just because Anglocentric hippies prefer to be thought of as 'scientists', and given the fact that genuine Syntax is obviously language specific, and given the fact that genuine Syntax could be explained in as short and simple a fashion as basic Morphology were it not for this deep-seated Chomskian bureaucracy that has enveloped modern Linguistics to the point where the field has become virtually useless for any practical application, all I can say about Chomsky's Minimalist Program is: what filth. Here's to the 46th year of new ideas being rejected in maintenance of ignorance.

Pish posh.......2003-02-28

Oh, we're sorry. This book is the absolute last word in linguistics and its relation to the neuro-computational-cognitive sciences. Until Chomsky writes the Extended Last Word in Linguistics, a few years down the line.

What every linguist needs to read...........2002-12-13

Though Chomsky's writing style tends to be opaque, and takes work to understand from even the best linguists, this book should be a required text for every theoretical linguist. Minimalism has become a major force in Syntax since the publication of this book, and little can be done in the field without at least knowing about the theory. Even proponents of LFG and GPSG, for example, should read it so they are conversant with competing theories.

One caveat; beginning linguists will want to read up on transformational grammar, Government and Binding theory and Principles and Parameters before tackling this text. There is a very straightforward introductory textbook about Minimalism by Andrew Radford. Also, look for more recent developments of the program (Minimalist Inquiries, Derivation by Phase etc.)

Average customer rating:

Comprehensive

Understanding Minimalism (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics)
Norbert Hornstein , Jairo Nunes , and Kleanthes K. Grohmann
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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Binding: Paperback

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Course in Minimalist Syntax: Foundations and Prospects (Generative Syntax)

The Minimalist Program (Current Studies in Linguistics)

Thinking Syntactically: A Guide to Argumentation and Analysis (Blackwell Textbooks in Linguistics)

Minimalist Syntax: The Essential Readings (Linguistics: the Essential Readings)

Mind Design and Minimal Syntax

ASIN: 0521531942

Book Description

Minimalist models of grammar are developed logically in this volume and the ways in which they contrast with GB analysis are clearly explained. Spanning a decade of minimalist thinking, the textbook will enable students to better understand the questions and problems that minimalism invites, and to master the techniques of minimalist analysis. Over 100 exercises are provided, encouraging students to put their new skills into practice. The book will be an invaluable text for intermediate and advanced students of syntactic theory, as well as a solid foundation for further study and research within Chomsky's minimalist framework.

Customer Reviews:

Comprehensive .......2007-03-23

This book is thorough in covering Minimalism. I recommend it to those who have had a complete Introduction to Syntax. The book lacks detailed illustrations that would make it more accessible.

The Minimalist Cooks at Home: Recipes That Give You More Flavor from Fewer Ingredients in Less Time

Average customer rating:

Great book for some, but not for others.
Pretty good
Perfect for WannaBe Improvisational Cooks
If you just want to cook a few dishes well, buy this book!
great cookbooks

The Minimalist Cooks at Home: Recipes That Give You More Flavor from Fewer Ingredients in Less Time
Mark Bittman
Manufacturer: Broadway
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0767909267
Release Date: 2002-09-10

Amazon.com

Mark Bittman's New York Times column, "The Minimalist," is a much-consulted source for easy but polished recipes. The Minimalist Cooks at Home features these less-is-more recipes plus others never before published--formulas that require a minimum of technique and/or ingredients. Bittman's dishes draw on the world's cuisines and, taken together, represent what might be called a new kind of home cooking. Anyone seeking delicious everyday food that's quick to put on the table yet satisfies the demands of modern palates should embrace the book. In succinct chapters that cover the major dish categories, salads through desserts, Bittman offers fare like Roast Cod with Tangerine Sauce, Chicken Under a Brick, Real Paella, and 15-Minute Fruit Gratin. These approachable, flexible dishes should enter the repertoire of cooks at all skill levels, as well as please those they feed. Bittman also includes recipes that illustrate a particular cooking technique or sequence; his Creamy Broccoli Soup, for example, presents a formula--three parts liquid, two parts vegetable, one part dairy--that can be applied widely to create new dishes instinctively. Cooking lessons like these, plus shortcuts and multiple suggestions for flavorful variations, make the book particularly useful. With photos that illustrate a number of the techniques, and recipe notes that further explore dish anatomy, the book delivers on its promise to provide strategies for good eating with little fuss. --Arthur Boehm

Book Description

People are hungry for ways to simplify their cooking--without sacrificing quality or taste. Now you can satisfy that hunger with The Minimalist Cooks at Home.

Mark Bittman, author of the New York Times column "The Minimalist," brings one hundred of his innovative recipes (many never published before) right into your kitchen. But The Minimalist Cooks at Home is so much more than recipes. It features Mark's personal quick-cooking lessons, shortcuts, and ideas for variations, substitutions, and spin-offs.

Mark doesn't believe in arduous techniques, long lists of ingredients, and even longer hours in the kitchen. Instead, with a few choice ingredients and a few easy steps, dishes such as Paella, Fast and Easy; Ziti with Butter, Sage, and Parmesan; Spicy Chicken with Lemon-grass and Lime; and 15-Minute Fruit Gratin can be on your table in no time.

And by encouraging versatility, The Minimalist Cooks at Home allows cooks of all skill levels to create a tailored repertoire of sophisticated dinners. This is modern cooking at its best--flexible, fast, and fabulous.

Customer Reviews:

Great book for some, but not for others........2007-07-27

Every week for the past 7 years, I have eagerly read Mark Bittman's NY Times column, so naturally I bought this book when it first came out. I'm the kind of cook who always has frozen limes and lemons in the freezer for juicing, but I find many of the recipes inaccessible for more than special occasions.

The book is certainly a good read and it does a great job of reminding us of all the foods that we may under-appreciate or not use fully, but the small number of ingredients in each of the recipes give them a small margin of error. Bittman does give substitutions, but the substitutions only go so far; often if one of the ingredients is problematic, you can't make the recipe at all. If you have any kind of constraints on the food you can buy, eat, or prepare --- budget, allergy, diet, access, religion, equipment --- the number of recipes that you can use drops sharply, especially with more than one constraint.

The ideal audience for the book is an adventurous cook who eats everything and is willing to put in a bit of extra time to go to an extra store for ingredients they wouldn't have lying around normally, like fresh lemongrass, dry sparkling cider, Riesling, or nam pla; equipment like a mandoline or a brick; or to spend a little extra for fresh herbs or to use large amounts of wine or good wine vinegar in a recipe.

Pretty good.......2006-08-12

I liked his approach to making a tasty meal with minimal effort, but I evidently have different tastes than the author. I like that he uses fresh ingredients, however, I prefer a more heart-healthy approach to cooking. Picking and choosing, I'm finding a few good recipes.

Perfect for WannaBe Improvisational Cooks.......2005-06-03

My mother was a great cook. Without recipes, she simply stood at the stove and threw things in the pot. Thus she rarely made the same thing twice but everything was delicious. In my 20s, I tried to cook the same way - the results were awful. Someone suggested I start with a recipe, then modify. Voila. Today I'm known as a good cook but what I'm actually good at is selecting/following (and modifying) recipes. This Mark Bittman cookbook is for people, I think, who cook (or want to cook) in a relaxed, creative, improvisational way. I bought a copy for a wedding gift, am now ordering one for myself!

If you just want to cook a few dishes well, buy this book!.......2005-04-07

`The Minimalist Cooks at Home' is from New York Times culinary columnist, Mark Bittman, who is filling a classic Times role created by the noted French chef, Pierre Franey, who elevated the fast cooking genre over thirty years ago in columns in the very same New York Times and in books compiled from these columns. Since I still see Franey's '60 Minute Gourmet' volumes on the shelves of bookstores, I guess I must keep them on mine at least until I review these two volumes of columns.

While Franey is probably a far better cook than his successor, Bittman may be a much better writer or at least better at homing in on things which are important to people wishing to make good food fast. I have reviewed his `How to Cook Everything' and his `Fish' cookbook and have found both of them excellent material for a modest shelf of cookbooks. In this book and others Bittman has done from his Times column, Bittman is playing the thinking man's Rachael Ray. I say that with no disrespect toward Ms. Rachael, as I have favorably reviewed all her books. Rachael's recipe write-ups are great for people with fair kitchen skills who want very good step by step directions on how to get from groceries to dinner as quickly as possible. Bittman, on the other hand, takes a much broader viewpoint. His `minimalist' notion is not simply a matter of doing things quickly. In his words, `...these recipes require a minimum of technique and/or a minimum number of ingredients; most of them are fast as well. The approach is strictly less-is-more', an attempt to repoduce recipes that are so sophisticated, savvy, and fresh that they will inspire even experienced cooks while making them basic and simple enough to tempt novices'.

Like Jacques Pepin in both his classic `The Short Cut Cook' and his recent `Fast Food My Way', Bittman begins by selecting recipes which are simple to begin with rather than, like Franey and Ray, modifying recipes to shorten normally long cooking approaches. In Franey's case, a recipe in his book such as his chili has sometimes disappointed me. I believe Frenchman Franey never sensed the essence of chili and produced something which simply does not work very well as `chili', which, I suspect, simply does not make it without a long braise. Franey's collections of columns even go so far as to give us the French names of his dishes. A quick browse of Tony Bourdain's `Les Halle' Cookbook' will demonstrate that lots of classic French recipes are actually pretty easy to make, but a focus on French cuisine is a bit limiting in today's American thinking about food.

Bittman improves on Franey by making each recipe a little essay on how to succeed with a very useful and interesting family of dishes. The recipe is simply an exemplar which can serve as a jumping off point for a modest to wide range of variations. Surprisingly, Bittman also improves on Frenchman Franey by providing suggestions for wine pairings. He also covers `Keys to Success', points on ingredients or technique which will improve the quality of the dish.

My overall evaluation of this book may be jaded by having reviewed over 400 cookbooks and find no easy niche into which to stick this work and others based on Bittman's New York Times columns. The thing which best illuminates the value of this book for me is an opinion shared by both Ina Garten and Deborah Madison that the home cook should concentrate on mastering just a few good dishes and variations on those dishes. Madison assures us that cooking will become much more pleasurable when a simple dish can be whipped up largely from memory.

If you agree with this position, and I find it a very attractive position to take if you are not a foodie, but like to cook well at least once a week, then this book and it's siblings are some of the very best you can choose, unless you happen to be a vegetarian, in which case you go for Deborah Madison's new book, `Vegetarian Suppers'.

Madison and Bittman share strong writing skills with excellent choices of recipes in what are really volumes of `personal best' recipes.

If you eat meat, like to cook now and then, and do not have room for a large cookbook collection, you could do a lot worse than by limiting yourself to Mark Bittman cookbooks.

Highly recommended.

great cookbooks.......2004-06-23

These are great cookbooks (this and his other minimalist cookbook). Not only are the recipes fast, delicious, and simple, the flavors are clear, interesting, and distinct. My husband tends to cook dense, stew-like, Moosewood Cookbook concoctions, which I don't like at all. Now he cooks from Bittman's cookbooks, and dinner is much more interesting. We have tons of cookbooks, and these are definately my favorite.

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