Cultivated Power

Cultivated Power
Author: Elizabeth Hyde
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 363
Release: 2005-04-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 0812238265

Cultivated Power explores the collection, cultivation, and display of flowers in early modern France at the historical moment when flowering plants piqued the curiosity of European gardeners and botanists, merchants and ministers, and dukes and kings alike.

Cultivated Power

Cultivated Power
Author: Elizabeth Hyde
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 363
Release: 2005-03-07
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0812204069

Cultivated Power explores the collection, cultivation, and display of flowers in early modern France at the historical moment when flowering plants, many of which were becoming known in Europe for the first time, piqued the curiosity of European gardeners and botanists, merchants and ministers, dukes and kings. Elizabeth Hyde reveals how flowers became uniquely capable of revealing the curiosity, reason, and taste of those elite men who engaged in their cultivation. The cultural and increasingly political value of such qualities was not lost on royal panegyrists, who seized upon the new meanings of flowers in celebrating the glory of Louis XIV. Using previously unexplored archival sources, Hyde recovers the extent of floral plantations in the gardens of Versailles and the sophisticated system of nurseries created to fulfill the demands of the king's gardeners. She further examines how the successful cultivation of those flowers made it possible for Louis XIV to demonstrate that his reign was a golden era surpassing even that of antiquity. Cultivated Power expands our knowledge of flowers in European history beyond the Dutch tulip mania, and restores our understanding of the importance of flowers in the French classical garden. The book also develops a fuller perspective on the roles of gender, rank, and material goods in the age of the baroque. Using flowers to analyze the movement of culture in early modern society, Cultivated Power ultimately highlights the influence of curious florists on the taste of the king, and the extension of the cultural into the realm of the political.

Bulletin

Bulletin
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 844
Release: 1936
Genre: Agriculture
ISBN:

Some numbers are reprints from scientific journals.

Energy and Civilization

Energy and Civilization
Author: Vaclav Smil
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 564
Release: 2018-11-13
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0262536161

A comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society throughout history, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization. "I wait for new Smil books the way some people wait for the next 'Star Wars' movie. In his latest book, Energy and Civilization: A History, he goes deep and broad to explain how innovations in humans' ability to turn energy into heat, light, and motion have been a driving force behind our cultural and economic progress over the past 10,000 years. —Bill Gates, Gates Notes, Best Books of the Year Energy is the only universal currency; it is necessary for getting anything done. The conversion of energy on Earth ranges from terra-forming forces of plate tectonics to cumulative erosive effects of raindrops. Life on Earth depends on the photosynthetic conversion of solar energy into plant biomass. Humans have come to rely on many more energy flows—ranging from fossil fuels to photovoltaic generation of electricity—for their civilized existence. In this monumental history, Vaclav Smil provides a comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization. Humans are the only species that can systematically harness energies outside their bodies, using the power of their intellect and an enormous variety of artifacts—from the simplest tools to internal combustion engines and nuclear reactors. The epochal transition to fossil fuels affected everything: agriculture, industry, transportation, weapons, communication, economics, urbanization, quality of life, politics, and the environment. Smil describes humanity's energy eras in panoramic and interdisciplinary fashion, offering readers a magisterial overview. This book is an extensively updated and expanded version of Smil's Energy in World History (1994). Smil has incorporated an enormous amount of new material, reflecting the dramatic developments in energy studies over the last two decades and his own research over that time.

The Powers of Distance

The Powers of Distance
Author: Amanda Anderson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2001-08-19
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780691074979

Gender, modernity, and detachment: domestic ideals and the case of Charlotte Brontë's Villette -- Cosmopolitanism in different voices: Charles Dickens's Little Dorrit and the hermeneutics of suspicion -- Disinterestedness as a vocation: revisiting Matthew Arnold -- The cultivation of partiality: George Eliot and the Jewish question -- "Manners before morals": Oscar Wilde and epigrammatic detachment.

Grit

Grit
Author: Angela Duckworth
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2016-05-03
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 1501111124

In this instant New York Times bestseller, Angela Duckworth shows anyone striving to succeed that the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent, but a special blend of passion and persistence she calls “grit.” “Inspiration for non-geniuses everywhere” (People). The daughter of a scientist who frequently noted her lack of “genius,” Angela Duckworth is now a celebrated researcher and professor. It was her early eye-opening stints in teaching, business consulting, and neuroscience that led to her hypothesis about what really drives success: not genius, but a unique combination of passion and long-term perseverance. In Grit, she takes us into the field to visit cadets struggling through their first days at West Point, teachers working in some of the toughest schools, and young finalists in the National Spelling Bee. She also mines fascinating insights from history and shows what can be gleaned from modern experiments in peak performance. Finally, she shares what she’s learned from interviewing dozens of high achievers—from JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon to New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff to Seattle Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll. “Duckworth’s ideas about the cultivation of tenacity have clearly changed some lives for the better” (The New York Times Book Review). Among Grit’s most valuable insights: any effort you make ultimately counts twice toward your goal; grit can be learned, regardless of IQ or circumstances; when it comes to child-rearing, neither a warm embrace nor high standards will work by themselves; how to trigger lifelong interest; the magic of the Hard Thing Rule; and so much more. Winningly personal, insightful, and even life-changing, Grit is a book about what goes through your head when you fall down, and how that—not talent or luck—makes all the difference. This is “a fascinating tour of the psychological research on success” (The Wall Street Journal).

The Complete Collected Works of Dr. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (Hardcover Edition)

The Complete Collected Works of Dr. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (Hardcover Edition)
Author: Phineas Parkhurst Quimby
Publisher: Seed of Life Publishing
Total Pages: 20
Release: 2009-01-24
Genre: Mental healing
ISBN: 0615240305

Dr. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802-1866) was a lifelong resident of Belfast, ME and a clockmaker, by trade. From the late 1840s until the time of his transition, he wrote down his own particular philosophical, psychological and metaphysical views on life, death, health, religion and the mind. His early studies of hypnosis, then called mesmerism, led him later on to develop his unique method of healing for both mental and physical affirmities. Proud of his New England heritage, passionate in his love of liberty and equality for all, outspoken in his admonitions against what he considered aristocracy and priestcraft, empathetic toward the sick and suffering, he recorded his experiences, experiments and case studies of his own life journey's explorations into humanity and spirituality, in order to leave behind, for us, what he found, for himself, to be universally applicable truths, for the benefit of all mankind. For this reason, he wrote this book. (Hardcover Edition) (700 pages)

Vaux and Versailles

Vaux and Versailles
Author: Claire Goldstein
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2008-01-09
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780812240580

Goldstein shows how the connection between Vaux and Versailles is at the heart of classical style. She retraces the roots of Versailles in Fouquet's short-lived experiment, and destabilises any easy understanding of the court of the Sun King as the origin of French national style.