Princeton University Press – Knjiga.hr

Colonizing Hawai’i : the cultural power of law

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 17:52:51 +0000

In this influential study, anthropologist and legal scholar Sally Engle Merry examines how Western legal systems reshaped Hawaiian society in the nineteenth century. Focusing on the period of increasing American influence, she explores how law functioned not merely as a set of rules but as a powerful cultural force that transformed concepts of land, family, gender, and authority. Drawing on archival research and court records, Merry shows how Hawaiians engaged with, adapted to, and at times resisted the imposed legal order. Blending legal history and cultural anthropology, this book offers a nuanced account of colonialism’s everyday workings and will interest readers of legal studies, Pacific history, and postcolonial scholarship.

Dynamical Chaos

Fri, 04 Jul 2025 18:21:20 +0000

Proceedings of a Royal Society Discussion Meeting held on 4 and 5 February 1987. The leading scientists who gave these papers under the sponsorship of the Royal Society in early 1987 provide reviews of facets of the subject of chaos ranging from the practical aspects of mirror machines for fusion power to the pure mathematics of geodesics on surfaces of negative curvature. The papers deal with systems in which chaotic conditions arise from initial value problems with unique solutions, as opposed to those where chaos is produced by the introduction of noise from an external source. Table of Contents Diagnosis of Dynamical Systems with Fluctuating Parameters D. Ruelle Nonlinear Dynamics, Chaos, and Complex Cardiac Arrhythmias L. Glass, A. L. Goldberger, M. Courtemanche, and A. Shrier Chaos and the Dynamics of Biological Populations R. M. May Fractal Bifurcation Sets, Renormalization Strange Sets, and Their Universal Invariants D. A. Rand From Chaos to Turbulence in Bnard Convection A. Libchaber Dynamics of Convection N. O. Weiss Chaos: A Mixed Metaphor for Turbulence E. A. Spiegel Arithmetical Theory of Anosov Diffeomorphisms F. Vivaldi Chaotic Behavior in the Solar System J. Wisdom Chaos in Hamiltonian Systems I. C. Percival Semi-Classical Quantization, Adiabatic Invariants, and Classical Chaos W. P. Reinhardt and I. Dana Particle Confinement and Adiabatic Invariance B. V. Chirikov Some Geometrical Models of Chaotic Dynamics C. Series The Bakerian Lecture: Quantum Chaology M. V. Berry

From Prague After Munich: Diplomatic Papers, 1938-1940

Tue, 20 May 2025 17:37:40 +0000

From Prague After Munich: Diplomatic Papers, 1938-1940 by George F. Kennan is a collection of diplomatic papers, letters, and notes documenting Kennan’s firsthand observations as the American Secretary of Legation in Prague during a critical period in European history. Assigned in August 1938, Kennan witnessed the aftermath of the Munich Agreement, the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, and the subsequent attempts at Germanization, exploitation of native organizations, anti-Semitic policies, and economic control imposed by Nazi Germany. His writings provide a unique and sensitive historical record of the tragic events leading up to World War II, reflecting the political and social upheaval in Czechoslovakia as it was encircled and ultimately overtaken by Nazi forces. The book offers insight into the early stages of European conflict and the collapse of Czechoslovak sovereignty, as seen through the eyes of a skilled diplomat and historian.

The influence of Simonides of Ceos upon Horace

Tue, 20 May 2025 17:34:39 +0000

Sensuyt le Nouveau monde & navigations faictes par Emeric Vespuce Florentin.

Sat, 17 May 2025 11:49:57 +0000

Sensuyt le Nouveau monde & navigations faictes par Emeric Vespuce Florentin. Des pays & isles nouvellement trouvez auparavant a nous inconneuz tant en l’Ethiope que Arrabie, Calichut et aultres plusiers regions estranges. In facsimile. by Fracanzano da Montalboddo; Vespucci, Amerigo, 1451-1512; Du Redoner, Mathurin.

Medieval Cities : Their Origins and the Revival of Trade

Wed, 14 May 2025 17:27:32 +0000

Henri Pirenne is best known for his provocative argument–known as the Pirenne thesis and familiar to all students of medieval Europe–that it was not the invasion of the Germanic tribes that destroyed the civilization of antiquity, but rather the closing of Mediterranean trade by Arab conquest in the seventh century. The consequent interruption of long distance commerce accelerated the decline of the ancient cities of Europe. Pirenne first formulated his thesis in articles and then expanded on them in Medieval Cities. In the book Pirenne traces the growth of the medieval city from the tenth century to the twelfth, challenging conventional wisdom by attributing the origins of medieval cities to the revival of trade. In addition, Pirenne describes the clear role the middle class played in the development of the modern economic system and modern culture. The Pirenne thesis was fully worked out in the book Mohammed and Charlemagne, which appeared shortly after Pirenne’s death. Pirenne was one of the world’s leading historians and arguably the most famous Belgium had produced. During World War I, while teaching at the University of Ghent, he was arrested for supporting Belgium’s passive resistance and deported to Germany, where he was held from 1916 to 1918. In 1922, universities in various parts of the United States invited him to deliver out of these lectures grew Medieval Cities, which appeared in English translation before being published in French in 1927.

What Is World Literature?

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 18:57:18 +0000

World literature was long defined in North America as an established canon of European masterpieces, but an emerging global perspective has challenged both this European focus and the very category of the masterpiece. The first book to look broadly at the contemporary scope and purposes of world literature, What Is World Literature? probes the uses and abuses of world literature in a rapidly changing world. In case studies ranging from the Sumerians to the Aztecs and from medieval mysticism to postmodern metafiction, David Damrosch looks at the ways works change as they move from national to global contexts. Presenting world literature not as a canon of texts but as a mode of circulation and of reading, Damrosch argues that world literature is work that gains in translation. When it is effectively presented, a work of world literature moves into an elliptical space created between the source and receiving cultures, shaped by both but circumscribed by neither alone. Established classics and new discoveries alike participate in this mode of circulation, but they can be seriously mishandled in the process. From the rediscovered Epic of Gilgamesh in the nineteenth century to Rigoberta Menchú’s writing today, foreign works have often been distorted by the immediate needs of their own editors and translators. Eloquently written, argued largely by example, and replete with insightful close readings, this book is both an essay in definition and a series of cautionary tales.

Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays

Thu, 23 Jan 2025 18:59:12 +0000

Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization

Fri, 03 Jan 2025 18:48:13 +0000

Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1974. Edited by Joseph Campbell. From back: This book interprets for the Western mind the key motifs of India’s legend, myth, and folklore, taken directly from the Sanskrit, and illustrated with seventy plates of Indian art. It is primarily an introduction to image-thinking and picture-reading in Indian art and though… 70 plates.

Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 16:02:36 +0000

The fascinating untold story of how the ancients imagined robots and other forms of artificial life—and even invented real automated machines The first robot to walk the earth was a bronze giant called Talos. This wondrous machine was created not by MIT Robotics Lab, but by Hephaestus, the Greek god of invention. More than 2,500 years ago, long before medieval automata, and centuries before technology made self-moving devices possible, Greek mythology was exploring ideas about creating artificial life—and grappling with still-unresolved ethical concerns about biotechne, life through craft. In this compelling, richly illustrated book, Adrienne Mayor tells the fascinating story of how ancient Greek, Roman, Indian, and Chinese myths envisioned artificial life, automata, self-moving devices, and human enhancements—and how these visions relate to and reflect the ancient invention of real animated machines.As early as Homer, Greeks were imagining robotic servants, animated statues, and even ancient versions of Artificial Intelligence, while in Indian legend, Buddha’s precious relics were defended by robot warriors copied from Greco-Roman designs for real automata. Mythic automata appear in tales about Jason and the Argonauts, Medea, Daedalus, Prometheus, and Pandora, and many of these machines are described as being built with the same materials and methods that human artisans used to make tools and statues. And, indeed, many sophisticated animated devices were actually built in antiquity, reaching a climax with the creation of a host of automata in the ancient city of learning, Alexandria, the original Silicon Valley.A groundbreaking account of the earliest expressions of the timeless impulse to create artificial life, Gods and Robots reveals how some of today’s most advanced innovations in robotics and AI were foreshadowed in ancient myth—and how science has always been driven by imagination. This is mythology for the age of AI.