Несовершенный человек. Случайность эволюции мозга и ее последствия. Гари Маркус.

Человек привык считать себя венцом творения: свои сильные стороны - нормой, а слабости - отклонением. Подход автора принципиально другой: мы изначально несовершенны; наш мозг, как и тело, в ходе эволюции формировался достаточно случайно, из "подручных материалов" природы и являет собой, так называемый клудж - нелепое, неуклюжее, но удивительно эффективное решение проблемы. Понятие клуджа проливает свет на важные стороны нашей жизни и объясняет множество проблем, с которыми мы сталкиваемся. Выводы автора оптимистичны: имея должное понимание соотношения сил и слабостей человеческого ума, мы получаем возможность помочь не только себе, но и обществу.

"Книга о том, что человеческий мозг [...] собранный из всего, что попалось под руку; держащийся на честном слове, но работающий как часы. И это, что называется, многое
объясняет в человеке. Обязательное чтение" – Openspace.ru

"Marcus's emphasis on the peculiar quirks of our minds - or odd decisions and weird interpretations - makes for a fascinating, selfreferential read...Marcus's book makes "kluge" an indispensable term for explaining the human mind." - Seed

"Invigorating fun...inspired, one of those unexpected analogies that help us look at everything afresh." - New York Times Book Review

"A shot across the bow of intelligent design." - Kirkus Reviews

Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America's Future by Stephen Kinzer

Kinzer (Overthrow), columnist at the Guardian, takes an iconoclastic approach in this smart policy prescriptive that calls for elemental changes in America's relationships with Israel and Saudi Arabia, and even more remarkably, for the U.S. to find more sensible and natural allies in Turkey and Iran, the only Muslim countries in the Middle East where democracy is deeply rooted. This radical break from diplomatic convention has its roots deep in the cold war history that Kinzer
spends most of the book attentively mining. When he's corralling Middle Eastern history, Kinzer does an excellent job at stitching essential facts into a coherent and telling whole, demonstrating why, for instance, Turkey's recent return to greater religiosity is a victory against Islamist policies and how Israel's willingness to do America's dirty work (e.g., selling arms to Guatemala's military regime) tied the U.S. to Israel and Saudi Arabia so powerfully in the past. He's less
successful in analysis, though, and is prone to repetition; this astute book builds toward convincing new ideas, but doesn't provide the necessary scaffolding to hold them up. Publishers Weekly

“Fresh and well-informed... Kinzer argues persuasively that despite their very different governments -- one friendly and free, the other hostile and theocratic -- both Turkey and Iran are host to vibrant democratic traditions that make them natural long-term partners of the United States...[A] lively, character-driven approach to history.” - The Washington Post

“The main message is intriguing.” – The Economist

Times Books; 1 edition (June 8, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0805091270, ISBN-13: 978-0805091274

The Persians. Ancient, Mediaeval and Modern Iran by Homa Katouzian

In recent years, Iran has gained attention mostly for negative reasons—its authoritarian religious government, disputed nuclear program, and controversial role in the Middle East—but there is much more to the story of this ancient land than can be gleaned from the news. This authoritative and comprehensive history of Iran, written by Homa Katouzian, an acclaimed expert, covers the entire history of the area from the ancient Persian Empire to today’s Iranian state.
Writing from an Iranian rather than a European perspective, Katouzian integrates the significant cultural and literary history of Iran with its political and social history. Some of the greatest poets of human history wrote in Persian—among them Rumi, Omar Khayyam, and Saadi—and Katouzian discusses and occasionally quotes their work. In his thoughtful analysis of Iranian society, Katouzian argues that the absolute and arbitrary power traditionally enjoyed by Persian/Iranian rulers has resulted in an unstable society where fear and short-term thinking dominate. A magisterial history, this book also serves as an excellent background to the role of Iran in the contemporary world.
Homa Katouzian, a native of Iran, teaches Iranian history and Persian literature at St. Antony’s College and the Oriental Institute, University of Oxford. He is also editor of the journal Iranian Studies.

Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300169324

Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Ahmadinejad by William R. Polk

William R. Polk provides an informative, readable history of a country which is moving quickly toward becoming the dominant power and culture of the Middle East. A former member of the State Department’s Policy Planning Council, Polk describes a country and a history misunderstood by many in the West. While Iranians chafe under the yolk of their current leaders, they also have bitter memories of generations of British, Russian and American espionage, invasion, and dominance. There are important lessons to be learned from the past, and Polk teases them out of a long and rich history and shows that it is not just now, but for decades to come that an understanding of Iran will be essential to American safety and well-being.

“Offers much fascinating and accurate information” - Choice

"A great scholar's brilliant appreciation of Iranian culture and history." -- Dr. Khodadad Farmanfarmaian, former Deputy Prime Minister of Iran

"A digestible history of this tortured land is something Americans sorely need....And Polk carefully constructs one." - USA Today

"This book will be informative to two groups scarcely on speaking terms: the supporters of President Bush's invasion of Iraq and those implacably opposed to it....William Polk presents the reader with the full sweep of Iraq's history....He gives us a comprehensive tour." - Washington Times

"Haunting....One of the clearest prescriptions for success in Iraq yet to emerge." - Publishers Weekly

Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN-13: 978-0230103436

Cерия "Iranica". Хушанг Фархуджаста. Семья в Иране.

Книга "Семья в Иране", как явствует из ее названия, рассказывает об иранской семье и ее развитии с древности до наших дней. Основное внимание автор уделяет современной семье, которая в Иране в зависимости от места проживания и образа жизни подразделяется на городскую, сельскую и племенную. В книге также затрагиваются проблемы многоженства, разрешенного в исламе, участия женщин в социальной жизни, хиджаба и его строгости в различные эпохи. Данные по социологии современной иранской семьи приведены как в самом тексте, так и в виде таблиц.

Проект "Iranica" издательства "Петербургское Востоковедение" воспроизводит на русском языке аналогичную иранскую книжную серию "Книга об Иране". Книги изданы в 2007-2009 гг.
Данная серия книг была задумана в 1975/1996 г. в Центре международных культурных исследований при Организации по культуре и исламским связям, отвечающей за просветительскую работу по ознакомлению мирового сообщества с традиционными ценностями и особенностями современной жизни Исламской Республики Иран.

Cерия "Iranica". Хабиб Аллах Айат Аллахи. История иранского искусства

Первая часть книги посвящена искусству доисламского периода, вторая описывает эпоху со времени принятия ислама и до победы в стране Исламской революции. Наконец, третья часть посвяшена современному искусству Исламской республики Иран.

Проект "Iranica" издательства "Петербургское Востоковедение" воспроизводит на русском языке аналогичную иранскую книжную серию "Книга об Иране". Книги изданы в 2007-2009 гг.
Данная серия книг была задумана в 1975/1996 г. в Центре международных культурных исследований при Организации по культуре и исламским связям, отвечающей за просветительскую работу по ознакомлению мирового сообщества с традиционными ценностями и особенностями современной жизни Исламской Республики Иран.

Cерия "Iranica". Риза Ша'Бани. Краткая история Ирана

Книга посвящена истории одного из самых древних государств мира. Книга охватывает период с появления арийских племен на территории Ирана и вплоть до Исламской революции 1979 г. Автор намеренно не освещает события революции подробно, так как, по его мнению, еще не прошло достаточно времени, чтобы сделать это беспристрастно. Большое внимание уделено истории последних Каджаров, Конституционному движению начала XX в. и приходу к власти основателя последней правящей династии Ирана - Риза-шаха Пахлави, а также разнообразным аспектам его деятельности.

Проект "Iranica" издательства "Петербургское Востоковедение" воспроизводит на русском языке аналогичную иранскую книжную серию "Книга об Иране". Книги изданы в 2007-2009 гг.
Данная серия книг была задумана в 1975/1996 г. в Центре международных культурных исследований при Организации по культуре и исламским связям, отвечающей за просветительскую работу по ознакомлению мирового сообщества с традиционными ценностями и особенностями современной жизни Исламской Республики Иран.

Cерия "Iranica". Аббас Манучихри. Политическая система Ирана

Аббас Манучихри. Политическая система Ирана
Особенное внимание уделяется Конституции ИРИ. Книга рассказывает о важнейших вехах истории государственной власти в Иране, о настоящем ее положении, дает важную информацию о государственных институтах, правах человека в ИРИ и участии народа в политической жизни страны. Последний раздел книги посвящен внешней политике Исламской Республики Иран - начиная с образования сафавидского государства и заканчивая победой Исламской революции. В книге затрагиваются вопросы отношения Ирана к национально-освободительным движениям и движениям по борьбе за независимость, к положению дел в Персидском заливе и равно рассматриваются культурные связи ИРИ.

Проект "Iranica" издательства "Петербургское Востоковедение" воспроизводит на русском языке аналогичную иранскую книжную серию "Книга об Иране". Книги изданы в 2007-2009 гг.
Данная серия книг была задумана в 1975/1996 г. в Центре международных культурных исследований при Организации по культуре и исламским связям, отвечающей за просветительскую работу по ознакомлению мирового сообщества с традиционными ценностями и особенностями современной жизни Исламской Республики Иран.

Cерия "Iranica". Ахмад Тамимдари. История персидской литературы

"История персидской литературы" рассказывает об одной из самых блестящих и известных литератур стран Востока, о школах, стилях и жанрах персидской словесности. Особенное внимание автор уделяет различным философским школам и учениям, поскольку они во многом определили содержание литературных произведений.
В книге исследованы начало литературной жизни в Иране и основные периоды развития персидской литературы.

Проект "Iranica" издательства "Петербургское Востоковедение" воспроизводит на русском языке аналогичную иранскую книжную серию "Книга об Иране". Книги изданы в 2007-2009 гг.
Данная серия книг была задумана в 1975/1996 г. в Центре международных культурных исследований при Организации по культуре и исламским связям, отвечающей за просветительскую работу по ознакомлению мирового сообщества с традиционными ценностями и особенностями современной жизни Исламской Республики Иран.

Армения и сасанидский Иран. Эдуард Хуршудян

Постоянные почти непрерывающиеся отношения с Ираном - присутствие персидской жизни и персидской цивилизации в Армении - все это дало армянам возможность узнать персов в политическом и нравственном отношениях гораздо лучше, чем это могли сделать другие народы.

«Армения и Сасанидский Иран» представляет собой фундаментальное исследование в области источниковедения. По своей структуре, характеру и объему привлеченных материалов данная работа является чрезвычайно сложным и насыщенным исследованием, вторгающимся одновременно в несколько областей исторического знания – ориенталистику, сравнительное языкознание, нумизматику, хронографию и политическую историю.
Хуршудян предлагает научному сообществу своего рода новую концепцию для интерпретации исторического контекста армяно-иранского культурного и языкового взаимодействия. Она состоит в том, что сасанидский период был одновременно и вершиной, апогеем этого взаимодействия, и в то же время на нем обрывается традиция армяно-иранского культурного синтеза. Свою концепцию автор доказывает на колоссальном историческом материале, который он использует в своей книге. Этот материал включает в себя административные документы Аршакидов, парфянские, греческие и арамейские настенные надписи, стелы, геммы и буллы, памятники сасанидской эпиграфики. Автором проделан широчайший историко-этимологический анализ терминов, должностей и титулов парфянских, сасанидских и аршакидских административных, государственных, правовых и религиозных институтов.
В целом д-р Хуршудян привлек в свой источниковый комплекс древнеармянские, парфянские, среднеперсидские, сирийские, греческие, латинские и арабские источники, что выводит его исследование далеко за рамки первоначальной задачи – показать культурно-языковое армяно-иранское взаимодействие, но позволяет нарисовать широкое историческое полотно языкового и культурного синтеза большего количества культур. - Журнал "Континент"

Print-S Алматы, 2003 г. ISBN 9965-00-743-8

Schumann: Piano works. Piotr Anderszewski (piano)

Gramophone Magazine “Never one to follow a conventional path, Anderszewski makes Schumann entirely his own while at the same time highlighting the composer's essentially schizophrenic nature. Everything is seen through a novel perspective or prism with a rare ability to read between the lines...Virgin's sound captures all of Anderszewski's drama and crystalline brilliance.”

BBC Music Magazine “he combines a superlative pianistic tonal palette with an immensely sophisticated rhythmic vocabulary, a rare capacity to illuminate Schumann's polyphonic textures, and a gift for thematic conversation fit to make most performers, not excepting conductors, look to their laurels...None excels Anderszewski...Bewitchingly compelling.”

International Record Review “the fierce integrity of Anderszewski's musicality combines with his exquisitely refined pianism to make a listening experience that is never less than pleasurable and occasionally revelatory...Anderszewski's transcriptions are skilfully wrought...he approaches [Gesänge der Frühe] with
enormous sincerity and discernment, resulting in performances that are beautifully atmospheric”

BBC Radio 3 Disc of the Week
BBC Music Magazine Recommended
Gramophone Editors Choice

ROSSINI Stabat Mater

Anna Netrebko, Joyce DiDonato, Lawrence Brownlee, Ildebrando D`Arcangelo, Orchestra e Coro dell`Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

The Times: “The Accademia Chorus is one of the world’s best, and the full, honeyed tone is a constant pleasure. Another of the recording’s rocks is the bass soloist, Ildebrando d’Arcangelo, who never confuses eloquence with shouting and hits his notes dead centre...Brownlee avoids vocal preening and makes sure we can still
sense the text’s grieving mother, sharing Christ’s pain.”

Gramophone Magazine “A precondition for success here is the assembling of a matched quartet of technically accomplished singers blessed with a sense of the Rossini style. Pappano has this absolutely. The pairing of Anna Netrebko and Joyce DiDonato is a match made in heaven...This is one of the great choral recordings.”

Classic FM Magazine “Pappano is alive to nuance and inflection in Rossini's score. He allows Anna Netrebko and Joyce DiDonato ample scope for display but never at subtlety's expense...Imaginatively conceived and beautifully delivered.”

BBC Radio 3 Disc of the Week
BBC Music Magazine Disc of the Month
Gramophone Editors Choice Disc of The Month

To The One by John McLaughlin

With his new album To The One, iconic guitarist, composer and 2010 Grammy Nomineee John McLaughl in look s bac kwards and forwards simultaneously. The six original songs are hauntingly evocative - with roiling rhythmic swells, modal expanses, and telepathic group interaction echoing the profound influence of John Coltrane's 1965 spiritual jazz masterpiece A Love Supreme. The music of To The One was set down in the studio with very few overdubs, by McLaughlin's current performing outfit, the Fourth Dimension: Gary Husband (keyboards, drums), Etienne M'Bappe (electric bass), and Mark Mondesir (drums).

Compositional devices clearly inspired by Coltrane are fused with elements of McLaughlin's own multifaceted approach, all delivered with a group empathy and shared vision that harkens back to Coltrane's fearless mid-'60s quartet of Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, and Jimmy Garrison. The effect of Jones' kaleidoscopic approach to rhythm and drumming is especially felt, brilliantly recast and explored via McLaughlin's gift for complex metrical structures

Peter & the Wolf directed by Suzie Templeton

An animated retelling set to Prokofiev's suite. Peter is a slight lad, solitary, locked out of the woods by his protective grandfather, his only friend a duck. In town, he's bullied. When a wolf menaces the duck - as well as grandfather's fat cat and an ill-flying bird that Peter has befriended - Peter bravely tries to tree the wolf. Grandfather, the townspeople, and the hunters who have antagonized Peter figure in the dénouement.

Academy Awards, USA (Oscar) Best Short Film, Animated
Annecy International Animated Film Festival Grand Prix
British Animation Awards
Krok International Animated Films Festival Special Prize
BAFTA Film Award Nominated

The King's Speech directed by Tom Hooper

After the death of his father King George V (Michael Gambon) and the scandalous abdication of King Edward VIII (Guy Pearce), Bertie (Colin Firth) who has suffered from a debilitating speech impediment all his life, is suddenly crowned King George VI of England. With his country on the brink of war and in desperate need of a leader, his wife, Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), the future Queen Mother, arranges for her husband to see an eccentric speech therapist, Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush).

After a rough start, the two delve into an unorthodox course of treatment and eventually form an unbreakable bond. With the support of Logue, his family, his government and Winston Churchill (Timothy Spall), the King will overcome his stammer and deliver a radio-address that inspires his people and unites them in battle.
Based on the true story of King George VI, THE KING'S SPEECH follows the Royal Monarch's quest to find his voice.

21 wins & 80 nominations
Nominated for 12 Oscars.
BAFTA Film Award
British Independent Film Award
Independent Publisher Book Award Gold Medal
ForeWord Magazine 2009 Book of the Year Award

The Art of Not Being Governed. An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia by James Scott

For two thousand years the disparate groups that now reside in Zomia (a mountainous region the size of Europe that consists of portions of seven Asian countries) have fled the projects of the organized state societies that surround them—slavery, conscription, taxes, corvée labor, epidemics, and warfare. This book, essentially an “anarchist history,” is the first-ever examination of the huge literature on state-making whose author evaluates why people would deliberately and reactively remain
stateless. Among the strategies employed by the people of Zomia to remain stateless are physical dispersion in rugged terrain; agricultural practices that enhance mobility; pliable ethnic identities; devotion to prophetic, millenarian leaders; and maintenance of a largely oral culture that allows them to reinvent their histories and genealogies as they move between and around states.

In accessible language, James Scott, recognized worldwide as an eminent authority in Southeast Asian, peasant, and agrarian studies, tells the story of the peoples of Zomia and their unlikely odyssey in search of self-determination. He redefines our views on Asian politics, history, demographics, and even our fundamental ideas about what constitutes civilization, and challenges us with a radically different approach to history that presents events from the perspective of stateless peoples and redefines state-making as a form of “internal colonialism.” This new perspective requires a radical reevaluation of the civilizational narratives of the lowland states. Scott’s work on Zomia represents a new way to think of area studies that will be applicable to other runaway, fugitive, and marooned communities, be they Gypsies, Cossacks, tribes fleeing slave raiders, Marsh Arabs, or San-Bushmen.

Book of the Year, ForeWord Magazine
Fukuoka Asian Academic Prize
John K. Fairbank Book Prize, American Historical Association
Bernard Schwartz Book Award, Asia Society

Paradoxical Life. Meaning, Matter, and the Power of Human Choice by Andreas Wagner

What can a fingernail tell us about the mysteries of creation? In one sense, a nail is merely a hunk of mute matter, yet in another, it’s an information superhighway quite literally at our fingertips. Every moment, streams of molecular signals direct our cells to move, flatten, swell, shrink, divide, or die. Andreas Wagner’s ambitious new book explores this hidden web of unimaginably complex interactions in every living being. In the process, he unveils a host of paradoxes underpinning our
understanding of modern biology, contradictions he considers gatekeepers at the frontiers of knowledge.

Though we tend to think of concepts in such mutually exclusive pairs as mind-matter, self-other, and naturejavascript:void(0)-nurture, Wagner argues that these opposing ideas are not actually separate. Indeed, they are as inextricably connected as the two sides of a coin. Through a tour of modern biological marvels, Wagner illustrates how this paradoxical tension has a profound effect on the way we define the world around us.

Paradoxical Life is thus not only a unique account of modern biology. It ultimately serves a radical—and optimistic—outlook for humans and the world we help create.
Andreas Wagner is a professor in the department of biochemistry at the University of Zurich and an external faculty member at the Santa Fe Institute. Educated at Yale University and at the University of Vienna, Wagner focuses his research on the evolution and evolvability of biological systems. He lives in Zurich.

Independent Publisher Book Award Gold Medal
ForeWord Magazine 2009 Book of the Year Award

Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1 by Mark Twain

Mark Twain is his own greatest character in this brilliant self-portrait, the first of three volumes collected by the Mark Twain Project on the centenary of the author's death. It is published complete and unexpurgated for the first time. (Twain wanted his more scalding opinions suppressed until long after his death.) Eschewing chronology and organization, Twain simply meanders from observation to anecdote and between past and present. There are gorgeous reminiscences from his youth of landscapes, rural idylls, and Tom Sawyeresque japes; acidetched profiles of friends and enemies, from his "fiendish" Florentine landlady to the fatuous and "grotesque" Rockefellers; a searing polemic on a 1906 American massacre of Filipino insurgents; a hilarious screed against a hapless editor who dared tweak his prose; and countless tales of the author's own bamboozlement, unto bankruptcy, by publishers, business partners, doctors, miscellaneous moochers; he was even outsmarted by a wild turkey. Laced with Twain's unique blend of humor and vitriol, the haphazard narrative is engrossing, hugely funny, and deeply revealing of its author's mind. His is a world where every piety conceals fraud and every arcadia a trace of violence; he relishes the human comedy and reveres true nobility, yet as he tolls the bell for friends and family--most tenderly in an elegy for his daughter Susy, who died in her early 20s of meningitis--he feels that life is a pointless charade. Twain's memoirs are a pointillist masterpiece from which his vision of America--half paradise, half swindle--emerges with indelible force. 66 photos and line illus.

"Dip into the first enormous volume of Twain's autobiography that he had decreed should not appear until 100 years after his death. And Twain will begin to seem strange again, alluring and still astonishing, but less sure-footed, and at times both puzzled and puzzling in ways that still resonate with us, though not the ways we might expect."--New York Times

"Twain generously provides the 21st century aficionado a marvelous read. His crystalline humor and expansive range are a continuous source of delight and awe. . . . [He] has given us 'an astonishment' in his autobiography with his final, beautifully unorganized genius and intemperate thoughts. Pull up a chair and revel."--Los Angeles Times Book Review

The Bible and the People by Lori Anne Ferrell

In the eleventh century, the Bible was available only in expensive and rare hand-copied manuscripts. Today, millions of people from all walks of life seek guidance, inspiration, entertainment, and answers from their own editions of the Bible. This illustrated book tells the story of what happened to the ancient set of writings we call the Bible during those thousand years. Anchoring the story in material evidence—hundreds of different translations and versions of the Bible—Lori Anne Ferrell discusses how the Bible has been endlessly retailored to meet the changing needs of religion, politics, and the reading public while retaining its special status as a sacred text.

Focusing on the English-speaking world, The Bible and the People charts the extraordinary voyage of the Bible from manuscript Bibles to the Gutenberg volumes, Bibles commissioned by kings and queens, the Eliot Indian Bible, salesmen’s door-to-door Bibles, children’s Bibles, Gideon Bibles, teen magazine Bibles, and more. Ferrell discusses the Bible’s profound impact on readers over the centuries, and, in turn, the mark those readers made upon it. Enjoyable and informative, this book takes a fresh look at the fascinating and little-recognized connections among Christian, political, and book history.

"This unusual and very readable book offers an insight into the reception of the Bible by ordinary people at different times in history. Full of historical gems, this is a fascinating account of the world's most read (and owned), but least understood, book."—Christopher Rowland, University of Oxford

"In this . . . engaging text, Ferrell tours the history of the Bible as it has been copied, translated, annotated, dressed up and every which way adapted to changing times for English-speaking readers. . . . Ferrell rightly recognized this text's crucial place in the evolution of Anglo-American Christianity and in the heart of Christians."—Publishers Weekly

Adam Smith. An Enlightened Life by Nicholas Phillipson

Adam Smith (1723–90) is celebrated all over the world as the author of The Wealth of Nations and the founder of modern economics. A few of his ideas--that of the “invisible hand” of the market and that “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest” have become iconic. Yet Smith saw himself primarily as a philosopher rather than an economist and would never have predicted that the ideas for which he is now best known were his most important. This book shows the extent to which The Wealth of Nations and Smith’s other great work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, were part of a larger scheme to establish a grand “Science of Man,” one of the most ambitious projects of the European Enlightenment, which was to encompass law, history, and aesthetics as well as economics and ethics, and which was only half complete on Smith’s death in 1790.

Nick Phillipson reconstructs Smith’s intellectual ancestry and shows what Smith took from, and what he gave to, in the rapidly changing intellectual and commercial cultures of Glasgow and Edinburgh as they entered the great years of the Scottish Enlightenment. Above all he explains how far Smith’s ideas developed in dialogue with those of his closest friend, the other titan of the age, David Hume.

Nick Phillipson is one of the leading scholars of the Scottish Enlightenment. An Honorary Research Fellow in History at the University of Edinburgh, he has held visiting appointments at Princeton, Yale, the Folger Library, and the Ludwigs-Maximillian Universitat. An associate editor on the New Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and a founding editor of the journal Modern Intellectual History, he was codirector of the Science of Man in Scotland project and past president of the Eighteenth-Century Scottish Studies Society.

Favorite Business Book of the Year, James Pressley, Bloomberg BusinessWeek
Best Book of 2010, The Atlantic
Critics' Favorite Book of 2010, The New Yorker
Best Business Book of 2010, Tyler Cowen, NPR's "Marketplace"

How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell

In a wide-ranging intellectual career, Michel de Montaigne found no knowledge so hard to acquire as the knowledge of how to live this life well. By casting her biography of the writer as 20 chapters, each focused on a different answer to the question How to live? Bakewell limns Montaigne’s ceaseless pursuit of this most elusive knowledge.

Embedded in the 20 life-knowledge responses, readers will find essential facts—when and where Montaigne was born, how and whom he married, how he became mayor of Bordeaux, how he managed a public life in a time of lethal religious and political passions. But Bakewell keeps the focus on the inner evolution of the acute mind informing Montaigne’s charmingly digressive and tolerantly skeptical essays.

Flexible and curious, this was a mind at home contemplating the morality of cannibals, the meaning of his own near-death experience, and the puzzlingly human behavior of animals. And though Montaigne has identified his own personality as his overarching topic, Bakewell marvels at the way Montaigne’s prose has enchanted diverse readers—Hazlitt and Sterne, Woolf and Gide—with their own reflections. Because Montaigne’s capacious mirror still captivates many, this insightful life study will win high praise from both scholars and general readers. -- Booklist

“This charming biography shuffles incidents from Montaigne’s life and essays into twenty thematic chapters…Bakewell clearly relishes the anthropological anecdotes that enliven Montaigne’s work, but she handles equally well both his philosophical influences and the readers and interpreters who have guided the reception of the essays.”—The New Yorker

Inside Job. Directed by Charles Ferguson

Inside Job provides a comprehensive analysis of the global financial crisis of 2008, which at a cost over $20 trillion, caused millions of people to lose their jobs and homes in the worst recession since the Great Depression, and nearly resulted in a global financial collapse. Through exhaustive research and extensive interviews with key financial insiders, politicians, journalists, and academics, the film traces the rise of a rogue industry which has corrupted politics, regulation, and academia. It was made on location in the United States, Iceland, England, France, Singapore, and China.

Academy Awards, Oscar. Nominated
Gotham Awards, Best Documentary. Nominated
Satellite Awards Best Motion Picture, Documentary. Nominated

Countdown to Zero. Directed by Lucy Walker

Countdown to Zero traces the history of the atomic bomb from its origins to the present state of global affairs: nine nations possessing nuclear weapons capabilities with others racing to join them, leaving the world held in a delicate balance that could be shattered by an act of terrorism, failed diplomacy, or a simple accident. The film makes a compelling case for worldwide nuclear disarmament; an issue more topical than ever with the Obama administration working to revive this goal in the present day.

With a rigorous eye, Blindsight's Lucy Walker examines the arms race from the inception of the atomic bomb to the present. She builds her three-part structure around a speech from President Kennedy, in which he warns of "accident, miscalculation, and madness" in regard to nuclear power. If Kennedy serves as the film's conscience, physicist Robert Oppenheimer serves as its heart--the man who oversaw the Manhattan Project only to regret the death and destruction it would engender (footage of the pale-eyed Oppenheimer is almost as eerie as his prophetic words). Even Oppenheimer, though, couldn't have predicted the ready availability of highly enriched uranium in the years after the Cold War, one of Walker's more hilling revelations. Aside from the deadly explosions in Oklahoma City, Madrid, and other urban centers, Walker looks at a number of near misses. Her speakers include
top minds from the fields of academia, government, and journalism, from Russia's Mikhail Gorbachev to Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf (former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson serves as de facto narrator). As Kennedy concluded, "The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us," and Walker ends on a note of guarded optimism,
speaking with F. W. de Klerk, who dismantled South Africa's nuclear infrastructure during his administration. Most of Walker's other subjects, regardless of their political affiliation, agree that it's the right thing to do.

Satellite Awards Best Motion Picture, Documentary. Nominated

The Nature of Existence. Directed by Roger Nygard

Roger Nygard has taken his open-minded attitude and aptitude for locating incredible/insane people, and applied it to answering the big question: Why do we exist? By locating beliefs in their geographical origins the link between culture and faith is exposed, and the beauty of the landscape and architecture is just as compelling as the views expressed in them. --Fiona Scoble, Festival Daily, Cambridge Film Festival, England

“The film is really mostly about the foibles of religion, but gently so. It benefits from director Roger Nygard’s (“Trekkies”) light comic touch and heartfelt “desire to communicate truth,” as one subject says is often lacking in discussions of religious beliefs.” Michael Ordoña, Los Angeles Times

“The film treads ground covered in films like Diane Keaton’s ‘Heaven’ and James Toback’s ‘Big Bang’ … [The Nature of Existence] is quicker, funnier and less pretentious.” Mike Hale, The New York Times

“The Nature of Existence, is not so much an inquiry into the nature of religion and the eternal, but a tossed salad of all the world’s ideas about religion.” Peter Simek, D Magazine

Bartók: Piano Concertos Nos. 1, 2 & 3 (complete)

This is the first concerto recording by Jean-Efflam Bavouzet for Chandos. Following the tremendous success of his complete Debussy piano music edition (‘This could well be the finest and most challenging of all Debussy piano cycles’ – Bryce Morrison, Gramophone) – which scooped awards from both Gramophone and BBC Music – and the launch of his ambitious Haydn Piano Sonatas series, the pianist now turns his attention to
some of the mightiest concertos of the twentieth century.

International Piano Choice
Gramophone Editors Choice
The Independent Album of the Week
BBC Music Magazine Orchestral Choice
BBC Music Magazine Awards 2011 Orchestral Finalist

Chandos, 10610

Poul Ruders. Four Dances

Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Oliver Knussen, conductor

On this disc three of Ruders’s pivotal chamber works are in the hands of one of Europe's leading new music ensembles Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. Four Dances in One Movement (1983) is an emotional sequence of four pure musical characters. Abysm (2000), which Ruders has written for BCMG, and Nightshade (1987) are two modern tone poems rooted in both dark and moving sound worlds.

BIRMINGHAM CONTEMPORARY MUSIC GROUP (BCMG) was formed in 1987 by musicians from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Simon Rattle, the Group’s Founding Patron. BCMG is one of Europe’s
leading ensembles and has won many awards for its work in attracting new audiences for contemporary music.

OLIVER KNUSSEN is one of the most respected figures in British contemporary music. He is in international demand as an illuminating interpretation of twentieth century music, and he appears regularly with the major orchestras of the world. He was made a CBE in 1994 and is Conductor Laureate of the London Sinfonietta.

American Record Guide - "I have been listening to this constantly for over a month...The playing is spectacular"

BBC Music Magazine, 5 Stars - “Performances are as accurate and committed as you would expect from the BCMG and Knussen, with recorded sound that gives the textures clarity and depth”

The Guardian - "This is a bracing, sensuous ear-opener."

BBC Music Magazine Awards 2011 Chamber Finalist

Dacapo: 8226028

QUANTUM: EINSTEIN, BOHR, AND THE GREAT DEBATE ABOUT THE NATURE OF REALITY by Manjit Kumar

Quantum theory is weird. As Niels Bohr said, if you weren’t shocked by quantum theory, you didn’t really understand it. For most people, quantum theory is synonymous with mysterious, impenetrable science. And in fact for many years it was equally baffling for scientists themselves. In this tour de force of science history, Manjit Kumar gives a dramatic and superbly written account of this fundamental scientific revolution, focusing on the central conflict between Einstein and Bohr over the nature of reality and the soul of science.

This revelatory book takes a close look at the golden age of physics, the brilliant young minds at its core—and how an idea ignited the greatest intellectual debate of the twentieth century.

As a fairly innumerate non-scientist, I am perversely drawn to books about maths and science and usually abandon them with ignorance intact. However, Quantum by Manjit Kumar … is so well written that I now feel I’ve more or less got particle physics sussed. Quantum transcends genre—it is historical, scientific, biographical, philosophical. The Guardian

Kumar is an accomplished writer who knows how to separate the excitement of the chase from the sometimes impenetrable mathematics. Financial Times

Lively....a wide-ranging account, written for readers who are curious about the theory but what to sidestep its mathematical complexities....fascinating. The New York Times Book Review

DENG XIAOPING AND THE MAKING OF MODERN CHINA by Richard Evans

Evans, a former British ambassador to China, has penned a noteworthy biography of the most significant Chinese political leader of the post-Mao era. Since Deng Xiaoping's life literally parallels the course of modern Chinese history, this chronicle also provides a blueprint for comprehending the often arcane complexities of twentieth-century China. One of the original members of Mao's revolutionary cadre, Deng tenaciously survived civil strife, the Japanese invasion, the legendary Long March, and the purges of the Cultural Revolution, emerging as the preeminent national leader after the death of Mao. Renowned as the architect of contemporary China's amazingly successful economic development program, Deng is also credited with reintroducing a radically refashioned China into the eager embrace of the international community. Highly recommended for Asian studies collections. Booklist

ДЭН СЯОПИН И ЕГО ВРЕМЯ. В. Н. Усов

Книга известного российского китаиста-историка В.Н.Усова "Дэн Сяопин и
его время" является первым, самым полным и объективным в России
оригинальным исследованием биографии видного китайского революционера
и выдающегося политического деятеля. На богатом фактическом материале,
часто неизвестном широкому кругу читателей, включая новые архивные
источники и литературу, в книге подробно рассказывается о жизни и
деятельности китайского архитектора реформ на фоне эпохи и трагических
перемен происходящих как в его судьбе, так и в жизни страны. Со
страниц книги Дэн Сяопин предстает не только умным и умелым политиком,
но и живым человеком, со всеми его достоинствами и недостатками.

ОСНОВНЫЕ ВОПРОСЫ СОВРЕМЕННОГО КИТАЯ. Дэн Сяопин

Во вступительной речи на XII съезде КПК Дэн Сяопин указал на необходимость "сочетать всеобщую истину марксизма с конкретной реальностью страны, идти собственным путем и строить социализм с китайской спецификой...". К этой же теме он неоднократно возвращался и в последующие годы, говоря о коренных задачах в период строительства
социализма, о формировании социалистической духовной культуры, о реформе хозяйственной системы и политической структуры, внешней политике КНР, об идее "одно государство - два строя" и других проблемах.

В настоящем сборнике сфокусированы основные взгляды автора относительно строительства социализма с китайской спецификой. Красной нитью проходит мысль, что, твердо придерживаясь четырех основных принципов социализма, надо решительно выступать против буржуазной идеологии. В экономике же неуклонно проводить курс на реформу и расширение внешних сношений. Как указывает автор, четыре модернизации,
которые сейчас осуществляются в Китае,- это социалистические модернизации. Они включают не только реформу хозяйственной системы, но и перестройку политической- структуры.