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New York Times Bestseller “What, What? is a welcome—and joyful—reminder that true wisdom comes from asking the right questions. Should you read this book? Absolutely.” —Clayton Christensen, bestselling author of How Will You Measure Your Life? Based on the wildly popular commencement address, the art of asking (and answering) good questions by the Dean of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education. Whether we’re in the boardroom or the classroom, we spend far too much time and energy looking for the right answer. But the truth is that questions are just as important as answers, often more so. If you ask the wrong question, for instance, you’re guaranteed to get the wro...
This text explores the development of Lenin's thinking on violence, tracing the evolution of his thinking from the late 19th century, showing the impact of the First World War, and examining the Bolshevik seizure of power.
Coinciding with the extraordinary expansion of Britain's overseas empire under Queen Victoria, the invention of photography allowed millions to see what they thought were realistic and unbiased pictures of distant peoples and places. This supposed accuracy also helped to legitimate Victorian geography's illuminations of the "darkest" recesses of the globe with the "light" of scientific mapping techniques. But as James R. Ryan argues in Picturing Empire, Victorian photographs reveal as much about the imaginative landscapes of imperial culture as they do about the "real" subjects captured within their frames. Ryan considers the role of photography in the exploration and domestication of foreign landscapes, in imperial warfare, in the survey and classification of "racial types," in "hunting with the camera," and in teaching imperial geography to British schoolchildren. Ryan's careful exposure of the reciprocal relation between photographic image and imperial imagination will interest all those concerned with the cultural history of the British Empire.
How is it that, half a century after Brown v. Board of Education, educational opportunities remain so unequal for black and white students, not to mention poor and wealthy ones? In his important new book, Five Miles Away, A World Apart, James E. Ryan answers this question by tracing the fortunes of two schools in Richmond, Virginia--one in the city and the other in the suburbs. Ryan shows how court rulings in the 1970s, limiting the scope of desegregation, laid the groundwork for the sharp disparities between urban and suburban public schools that persist to this day. The Supreme Court, in accord with the wishes of the Nixon administration, allowed the suburbs to lock nonresidents out of the...
When Ferdinand Magellan set out to circumnavigate the globe in 1519, he wasn’t able to bring a digital camera or a smartphone with him. Yet, as the eagerly awaited images from the Mars rover prove, modern exploration is inconceivable without photography. Since its invention in 1839, photography has been integral to exploration, used by explorers, sponsors, and publishers alike, and the early twentieth century, advances in technology—and photography’s newfound cultural currency as a truthful witness to the world—made the camera an indispensable tool. In Photography and Exploration, James R. Ryan uses a variety of examples, from polar journeys to space missions, to show how exploration...
The organization of Shakespeare's plays has challenged, even baffled audiences and critics since the 17th century. Cymbeline has been dismissed as "incoherent." Hamlet "is of no clear shape." And Antony and Cleopatra "bewilders the mind." These judgments result from an incomplete understanding of Shakespeare's constructive practice. It is not the narrative arc alone that organizes the plays but a complex structure of interwoven narrative and thematic actions. While the narrative varies from play to play, thematic actions are invariably created in mirroring pairs around the central scene: A-B-C-B-A. This symmetrical pattern, which can be visualized as an arch with a focal keystone, is the foundation of all of Shakespeare's mature work, as shown through an analysis of the 26 plays in this book. This arch illuminates the structure of plays that have long been puzzling, demonstrating that they are thematically organized and rigorously crafted. It also reveals subtleties otherwise invisible.
The first novel from a gifted new Irish writer explores the prickly issue of emigration through the eyes of a young boy,growing up against the backdrop of rural Ireland,facing the trauma of leaving the world he knows for a world he hasonly heard of.
"This thought-provoking collection of essays, assembled in honour of renowned historian Geoffrey Roberts, analyses the complex, multi-faceted, and even contradictory nature of Stalinism and its representations. This volume 'revisions' Stalin in his various guises - despot and diplomat, soldier and statesman, rational bureaucrat and paranoid politician - and explores the complex picture that this created in Russia during the period. Broadly speaking, three important areas of debate are examined, united by a focus on political leadership: the key controversies surrounding Stalin's leadership role; a reconsideration of Stalin and the Cold War; and new perspectives on the cult of personality"--
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Screenwriting from the Heart is James Ryan's answer to today's formulaic, by-the-numbers Hollywood films. As a successful screenwriter and teacher, Ryan has distilled the content of his popular workshops into this indispensable guide to developing dramatic and passionate screenplays based on compelling characters. Maintaining that writing by formula results in contrived and untrue screenplays, Ryan's technique is based on the premise that our best work comes from the heart--from the inside out. This book shows screenwriters how to free up the unconscious imagination in order to use what they excavate from deep within themselves to craft a screenplay.