The Most Interesting Stories of all Nations: American


Book Description

The fact is, meanwhile, that, in the riddle story, the detective was an afterthought, or, more accurately, a deus ex machina to make the story go. The riddle had to be unriddled; and who could do it so naturally and readily as a detective? The detective, as Poe saw him, was a means to this end; and it was only afterwards that writers perceived his availability as a character. Lecoq accordingly becomes a figure in fiction, and Sherlock, while he was as yet a novelty, was nearly as attractive as the complications in which he involved himself. Riddle-story writers in general, however, encounter the obvious embarrassment that their detective is obliged to lavish so much attention on the professional services which the exigencies of the tale demand of him, that he has very little leisure to expound his own personal equation—the rather since the attitude of peering into a millstone is not, of itself, conducive to elucidations of oneself; the professional endowment obscures all the others. We ordinarily find, therefore, our author dismissing the individuality of his detective with a few strong black-chalk outlines, and devoting his main labor upon what he feels the reader will chiefly occupy his own ingenuity with,— namely, the elaboration of the riddle itself. Reader and writer sit down to a game, as it were, with the odds, of course, altogether on the latter's side,—apart from the fact that a writer sometimes permits himself a little cheating. It more often happens that the detective appears to be in the writer's pay, and aids the deception by leading the reader off on false scents. Be that as it may, the professional sleuth is in nine cases out of ten a dummy by malice prepense; and it might be plausibly argued that, in the interests of pure art, that is what he ought to be. But genius always finds a way that is better than the rules, and I think it will be found that the very best riddle stories contrive to drive character and riddle side by side, and to make each somehow enhance the effect of the other.—The intention of the above paragraph will be more precisely conveyed if I include under the name of detective not only the man from the central office, but also anybody whom the writer may, for ends of his own, consider better qualified for that function. The latter is a professional detective so far as the exigencies of the tale are concerned, and what becomes of him after that nobody need care,—there is no longer anything to prevent his becoming, in his own right, the most fascinating of mankind.







International Business-Society Management


Book Description

Drawing on a wealth of experience, both in research and teaching the authors of this book have developed a text that integrates reputation, responsibility, ethics and accountability.




Managing the Transition to a Sustainable Enterprise


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In combining practice and theory, this textbook provides a management perspective on the 'business case' for sustainability. Drawing on examples from 20 frontrunner companies located in the Netherlands, it builds upon a unique research project in which CEOs and middle-managers gave access not only to their decision-making process, but also revealed how their perceptions shaped the transition process. This book identifies four different archetypes of business cases and related business models that business students and managers can use to identify phases and related attitudes towards sustainability. The book provides in-depth analysis and insight into: * theoretical concepts and an overview of the relevant literature * the different business cases for sustainability * behavioural characteristics of each phase and the typical barriers between them * more than 70 tipping points * approaches to shaping stakeholder dialogue * effective engagement of stakeholders in each phase of transition * how companies move through the phases towards higher levels of sustainability * insights of employees of the 20 companies whether the business case was really achieved * summary of the interventions which have proved successful in these companies. This book offers students as well as managers of vocational and academic institutions at undergraduate and postgraduate level insight into real-life transition processes towards sustainability.




The Negro


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3 Summers


Book Description

Recite your poem to your aunt. I threw myself to the ground. Where were you in the night? In a school among the pines. What was the meaning of the dream? Organs, hormones, toxins, lesions: what is a body? In 3 Summers, Lisa Robertson takes up her earlier concerns with form and literary precedent, and turns toward the timeliness of embodiment. What is form's time? Here the form of life called a poem speaks with the body's mortality, its thickness, its play. The 10 poem-sequences in 3 Summers inflect a history of textual voices — Lucretius, Marx, Aby Warburg, Deleuze, the Sogdian Sutras — in a lyricism that insists on analysis and revolt, as well as the pleasures of description. The poet explores the mysterious oddness of the body, its languor and persistence, to test how it shapes the materiality of thinking, which includes rivers and forests. But in these poems' landscapes, the time of nature is inherently political. Now only time is wild, and only time — embodied here in Lisa Robertson’s forceful cadences — can tell. "Robertson proves hard to explain but easy to enjoy. . . . Dauntlessly and resourcefully intellectual, Robertson can also be playful or blunt. . . . She wields language expertly, even beautifully."—The New York Times "Robertson makes intellect seductive; only her poetry could turn swooning into a critical gesture."— The Village Voice Lisa Robertson's books include Cinema of the Present, Debbie: An Epic, The Men, The Weather, R's Boat and Occasional Works and Seven Walks from the Office for Soft Architecture. Lisa Robertson's Magenta Soul Whip was named one of The New York Times' 100 Notable Books. She lives in France.