Paper Empire


Book Description

In 2002, following the posthumous publication of William Gaddis' collected nonfiction, his final novel, and Jonathan Franzen's lengthy attack on him in The New Yorker, a number of partisan articles appeared in support of Gaddis' legacy. In a review in The London Review of Books, critic Hal Foster suggested a reason for disparate responses to Gaddis' reputation: Gaddis' unique hybridity, his ability to write in the gap between two dispensations, between science and literature, theory and narrative, and different orders of linguistic imagination. Gaddis (1922-1998) is often cited as the link between literary modernism and postmodernism in the United States. His novels - The Recognitions, JR, Carpenter's Gothic, and A Frolic of His Own - are notable in the ways that they often restrict themselves to the language and communication systems of the worlds he portrays.




Paper Empires


Book Description

Shrouded in mystery for centuries, the origins of American Playing Cards have continued to eluded us - UNTIL NOW! Journey back in time and discover the fascinating story of the early manufacturers. Retrace the steps of some of NEW YORK'S first influencers and businessmen. See the monumental events that shaped one of the country's favourite pastimes. PAPER EMPIRES reveals the undiscovered story of the United States Playing Card Industry as it follows four of its first, most iconic print masters. New research has provided volumes of never-before-seen images and information. These discoveries have cast light on the historical narrative behind the card makers and placed them front and centre during the most intriguing times of the 19th century. PAPER EMPIRES EXPLORES: THE MANUFACTURERS and their untold, chronological biographies. VISUAL HISTORICAL SECTIONS that show the amazing backdrop of American History. PLAYING CARD SECTIONS containing vibrant and high quality images of every deck. HISTORIC MAPS to authentically retrace the many locations of their businesses. PERSONAL DOCUMENTATION giving an inside look at their lives and families. FULL-SIZE IMAGE GALLERY featuring many high quality images. VOLUME I contains the complete histories of L I COHEN, ANDREW DOUGHERTY, SAMUEL HART, JOHN J LEVY. See the cultural significance of EARLY AMERICAN PLAYING CARDS and discover the prestigious past that belongs to the popular brands still in use today. Once you meet the makers, you'll never look at playing cards the same way again.




Delivered out of Empire


Book Description

The Pivotal Moments in the Old Testament Series helps readers see Scripture with new eyes, highlighting short, key texts—"pivotal moments"—that shift our expectations and invite us to turn toward another reality transformed by God's purposes and action. The book of Exodus brims with dramatic stories familiar to most of us: the burning bush, Moses' ringing proclamation to Pharaoh to "Let my people go," the parting of the Red Sea. These signs of God's liberating agency have sustained oppressed people seeking deliverance over the ages. But Exodus is also a complex book. Reading the text firsthand, one encounters multilayered narratives: about entrenched socioeconomic systems that exploit the vulnerable, the mysterious action of the divine, and the giving of a new law meant to set the people of Israel apart. How does a contemporary reader make sense of it all? And what does Exodus have to say about our own systems of domination and economic excess? In Delivered out of Empire, Walter Brueggemann offers a guide to the first half of Exodus, drawing out "pivotal moments" in the text to help readers untangle it. Throughout, Brueggemann shows how Exodus consistently reveals a God in radical solidarity with the powerless.




Paper Emperors


Book Description

‘A tour de force.’ — Professor Rodney Tiffen Before newspapers were ravaged by the digital age, they were a powerful force, especially in Australia — a country of newspaper giants and kingmakers. This magisterial book reveals who owned Australia’s newspapers and how they used them to wield political power. A corporate and political history of Australian newspapers spanning 140 years, it explains how Australia’s media system came to be dominated by a handful of empires and powerful family dynasties. Many are household names, even now: Murdoch, Fairfax, Syme, Packer. Written with verve and insight and showing unparalleled command of a vast range of sources, Sally Young shows how newspaper owners influenced policy-making, lobbied and bullied politicians, and shaped internal party politics. The book begins in 1803 with Australia’s first newspaper owner — a convict who became a wealthy bank owner — giving the industry a blend of notoriety, power and wealth from the start. Throughout the twentieth century, Australians were unaware that they were reading newspapers owned by secret bankrupts and failed land boomers, powerful mining magnates, Underbelly-style gangsters, bankers, and corporate titans. It ends with the downfall of Menzies in 1941 and his conviction that a handful of press barons brought him down. The intervening years are packed with political drama, business machinations and a struggle for readers, all while the newspaper barons are peddling power and influence.




From Stone to Paper


Book Description

This groundbreaking volume examines how the Mughal Empire used architecture to refashion its identity and stage authority in the 18th century, as it struggled to maintain political power against both regional challenges and the encroaching British Empire.




Empire


Book Description




Empires


Book Description

Although empires have shaped the political development of virtually all the states of the modern world, "imperialism" has not figured largely in the mainstream of scholarly literature. This book seeks to account for the imperial phenomenon and to establish its importance as a subject in the study of the theory of world politics. Michael Doyle believes that empires can best be defined as relationships of effective political control imposed by some political societies—those called metropoles—on other political societies—called peripheries. To build an explanation of the birth, life, and death of empires, he starts with an overview and critique of the leading theories of imperialism. Supplementing theoretical analysis with historical description, he considers episodes from the life cycles of empires from the classical and modern world, concentrating on the nineteenth-century scramble for Africa. He describes in detail the slow entanglement of the peripheral societies on the Nile and the Niger with metropolitan power, the survival of independent Ethiopia, Bismarck's manipulation of imperial diplomacy for European ends, the race for imperial possession in the 1880s, and the rapid setting of the imperial sun. Combining a sensitivity to historical detail with a judicious search for general patterns, Empires will engage the attention of social scientists in many disciplines.




The Chain Gang


Book Description

McCord recounts his successful efforts as editor and publisher of the Santa Fe Reporter in New Mexico to fend off the Gannett corporation's takeover, and to help save a small Green Bay daily newspaper from Gannett, the nation's largest newspaper chain. For general readers, journalists, and students. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR




Myths of Empire


Book Description

Overextension is the common pitfall of empires. Why does it occur? What are the forces that cause the great powers of the industrial era to pursue aggressive foreign policies? Jack Snyder identifies recurrent myths of empire, describes the varieties of overextension to which they lead, and criticizes the traditional explanations offered by historians and political scientists.He tests three competing theories—realism, misperception, and domestic coalition politics—against five detailed case studies: early twentieth-century Germany, Japan in the interwar period, Great Britain in the Victorian era, the Soviet Union after World War II, and the United States during the Cold War. The resulting insights run counter to much that has been written about these apparently familiar instances of empire building.




Failure of Empire


Book Description

Failure of Empire is the first comprehensive biography of the Roman emperor Valens and his troubled reign (A.D. 364-78). Valens will always be remembered for his spectacular defeat and death at the hands of the Goths in the Battle of Adrianople. This singular misfortune won him a front-row seat among history's great losers. By the time he was killed, his empire had been coming unglued for several years: the Goths had overrun the Balkans; Persians, Isaurians, and Saracens were threatening the east; the economy was in disarray; and pagans and Christians alike had been exiled, tortured, and executed in his religious persecutions. Valens had not, however, entirely failed in his job as emperor. He was an admirable administrator, a committed defender of the frontiers, and a ruler who showed remarkable sympathy for the needs of his subjects. In lively style and rich detail, Lenski incorporates a broad range of new material, from archaeology to Gothic and Armenian sources, in a study that illuminates the social, cultural, religious, economic, administrative, and military complexities of Valens's realm. Failure of Empire offers a nuanced reconsideration of Valens the man and shows both how he applied his strengths to meet the expectations of his world and how he ultimately failed in his efforts to match limited capacities to limitless demands.