Book Description
This atlas offers a definitive visual history of World War I. In 164 finely detailed, easy-to-read maps, it covers the origins of the war, the quarrels of the great European powers and the mobilization of 1914, plus the major battles and all the individual campaigns including the war at sea and in the air--putting them in the wider context of strategy. Beyond its thorough and precise military coverage, the atlas also explores the diplomatic, economic, and social aspects of the conflict. Many of the maps--such as a map of German food riots in 1916, a state-by-state map of opposition to the war in the United States in April, 1917--have put together normally scattered and diverse information with exceptional clarity.
Customer Reviews:
A Real Gem of a Reference Tool.......2003-07-26
The first edition of The Routledge Atlas of the First World War was published in 1970, and this new edition is extremely useful for readers interested in the conflict. Martin Gilbert has amassed something like 200 maps that cover various aspects of the First World. However, readers should realize that this is not a battle atlas that will depict every battle in great detail; rather, Gilbert's intent is to use maps to graphically portray many of the factors that shaped the war but that are often glossed over in textual accounts. While Gilbert does include maps of individual battles and campaigns, this atlas is designed to give the reader a fuller understanding of the political, military, economic and social factors that ultimately determined the outcome. Readers should also be advised that this atlas is heavily Anglo-centric, with only minimal coverage of the Eastern Front. The contributions of the French, Italians and Romanians are virtually absent from this volume. Despite this glaring bias, this atlas is still a useful reference tool (unless you are researching the French, Italian or Romanian armies).
The Routledge Atlas of the First World War consists of ten sections, five covering a single year of the war, one covering the prelude to war, one each on the war at sea and in the air, a section on the global war, and an aftermath. The section on prelude to war covers many well-known issues - such as the alliance system in Europe, the Berlin-Baghdad Railway, and ethnic politics in the Balkans - but it is nice to have all these put together in one graphic package. Oddly, there is no map detailing the various crises that preceded the war, such as the 1908 Bosnian Annexation Crisis.
The section on 1914 is good, covering the main campaigns on the East and Western Fronts, as well as naval actions overseas and the fate of the German colonies. Two significant omissions are the lack of a map of the Austrian invasion of Serbia or the French Plan XVII offensive that led to the Battle of the Frontiers. The section on 1915 is rather lame, with over-focus on British operations in Gallipoli and Mesopotamia, but only a handful of maps on the Eastern Front. Even the Western Front is down-played in the 1915 section, with no mention of the British Loos or Neuve Chapelle offensives, or any French operations. The 1916 section is also skimpy on non-British issues, with only one simple map of Verdun and no coverage of the Brusilov offensive.
The section on the air war is quite interesting, with maps depicting German zeppelin raids over England, London's air defenses, and British air raids on Germany. The section on the naval war has interesting maps of the British blockade, food riots in Germany, Allied merchant ship losses in the Mediterranean and in British waters, and American ship-building. The section on 1917 is better than the earlier sections on 1915-1916, with very nice maps of the underground mines at Messines Ridge, 3rd Ypres and several maps on the Eastern Front. The section on 1918 is also interesting, although the belated inclusion of a single map on the Italian Front is rather telling about the Anglo-centric nature of this volume. Certainly the most informative section of the Atlas is that covering the world at war, which has maps depicting the various war aims, India and the Commonwealth's contributions, British munitions production and British supplies to the Allies. The aftermath section is also useful for understanding the various treaties,
Book Description
If you're a high school student enrolled in an AP World History course, you need a test prep guide that's up to your academic standards. Peterson's Success series is just that guide, with a perfect blend of test-taking strategy, subject review, and practice exercises to give you the preparation you need. This comprehensive guide, covering the year 1000 to the present and the civilizations of Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe - will help you build the confidence you need to get the scores you deserve.
Customer Reviews:
up to 4 stars for the charts.......2004-09-14
This review book contains interesting tidbits that others don't have. It also features good overviews that hit the essentials and a large number of terrific comparative charts. This book makes connections among different civilizations, time periods, topics, and themes. In fact, it's possibly the best book for making connections and drawing conclusions.
For lots of details or facts, you'll need something else, too.
Better than Barron's, Not as good as Princeton Review.......2004-02-24
The title of this review sums it up. Petersen's APWH study guide is just "OK" for AP World History. It's a good source for ideas for multiple choice questions. I've used Petersen's, Barron's and Princeton Review with my students--hands down winner is PR's "Cracking the APWH Exam", In My Humble Opinion.
Book Description
If you're a high school student enrolled in an AP World History course, you need a test-prep guide that's up to your academic standards. Peterson's Success series is just that guide, with a perfect blend of test-taking strategy, subject review, and practice exercises to give you the preparation you need. This comprehensive guide-covering the year 1000 to the present and the civilizations of Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe-will help you build the confidence you need to get the scores you deserve.
FEATURES AND BENEFITS - Diagnostic tests to help determine your strengths and weaknesses - 2 full-length practice tests - Subject review focusing on only those topics that appear on the test - Structured study plans that help you maximize study time - Proven test-taking strategies
Customer Reviews:
Not very helpful........2005-08-12
Last spring I took 6 AP exams, for the most part I used Princeton Review exclusively. I used REA for American History (which is very good by the way), and purchased this book off of Amazon. I am sorry to say that I found this book all but useless. The chart layout would likely only help someone enabled with a photographic memory. Perhaps if you already know the subject very well, it could work as a review. However, if you are like me, and never took the class (and lacks a photographic memory), you will discover this book is not helpful, a waste of time and money. This was to such an extent that I went out to the store and bought the Princeton Review book for full price the week before rather than deal with the mediocre Petterson's. Another note on that, the Princeton Review World History is likely the worst Princeton Review AP prep book I have used, thus I wouldn't really recommend that. Try Jackson J. Spielvogel's world history text or Peter N. Stearns "Advance Placement Edition." Both are very informative as well as good reads. Furthermore, Stearns has great internet resources that are almost as proficient as the text itself. Good luck.
A test prep that is great for what it does not contain!!!.......2002-07-25
AP Success World History contains a great deal of pertinent information regarding the three topics that the College Board emphasizes. Instead of helping me learn hundreds of useless facts, the book aided me by clearly explaining the main topics included on the AP exam, topics including, but not limited to, "how cultures change over time" and "how cultures interact with one another." Once again, as most of the AP World History Exam deals with general trends and not specific facts, AP Success: World History is the right choice for preparation; and since it is not a very long book, last minute studying is more plausible with this book than perhaps any other. I should also point out here that taking the practice tests and STUDYING the SOLUTIONS for the tests is critical to success. By quickly reviewing the book and taking and STUDYING the practice test questions and SOLUTIONS, confidently earned a 4 on the actual AP EXAM with only 2 night's worth of study (90 mintutes of study on night 1 and 3 hours of study on night 2).
If you seriously want to do well on this examination and you have had little, poor quality, or no preparation for AP World History, then buying this book and using it will give you a very good chance of getting a 4. If you want a 5 you might need a little more preparation. Getting a 3 should be no problem.
First Study Guide for AP World History!.......2001-12-27
The first AP World History exam will be given in 2002, and this Peterson volume is the first study guide to become available. Whatever its flaws, it will be welcomed by many teachers and students who are pioneering this new AP course in its first year. What follows is a first impression by an AP World History teacher who occasionally moonlights as a College Board Consultant for AP World History.
Like other Peterson guides, this one begins with a diagnostic test, and the remainder of the book follows the typical pattern for AP study guides: a first half on test taking strategies (Chapters 1-5), and a second half on content review (Chapters 6-10). As a teacher, what I liked most about the study guide were the practice tests and the tables that organized and summarized content. What I liked least were the chapters on test-taking strategies, which seemed to lack the sophistication needed for students to excel on the written portions of the test. However, to be fair, 'your mileage may vary' depending on your grade level and level of AP experience. If you are a high school sophomore - as many students taking this course are - and you have very little or no experience taking AP exams, the study guide is very accessible and covers the basics in a simple, straightforward way. On the other hand, if you are a senior with lots of AP experience and are hoping to score a 5, I suspect you're going to be disappointed - but you should still find the practice tests moderately useful.
The study guide provides students with a course outline straight from what teachers recognize as 'the Acorn book,' and it obviously relies heavily on this source as a guide to the information it covers. Practice essays and DBQ topics are taken directly, if not stolen outright, from the Acorn book, and they are accompanied by rubrics that consist of elaborate (brainstorming) lists and tables. Oddly, the study guide does not provide students with a detailed explanation of the rubric that AP readers use in evaluating essays, i.e., what is specifically required for an outstanding essay. Nor do the DBQ chapter or rubrics adequately address issues of context, frame of reference, and perspective, i.e., 'Habits of Mind.'
Teachers and students should be advised that they may find a few of the multiple choice test questions and answers problematic (but what else is new?). The authors have also not quite mastered the technique of providing options within their essay questions, and they appear to prefer to use a minimum number of moderately long documents rather than a maximum number of short documents for their DBQs. Overall though, I consider the practice tests to be the most valuable part of the study guide. The multiple choice practice exams are not nearly as obsessive about factual details as most of the textbook-based exams that many teachers are using in their classes. Of course, we can only hope that the authors guessed right about the level of difficulty of the AP exam. (I suspect the practice tests are a bit too easy.) We won't really know until May.
(By the way, the study guide is 350 pages, not 500.)
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"""It is the aim of this book to...present the evolution of number as the profoundly human story which it is.""
¿Tobias Dantzig
""This is beyond doubt the most interesting book on the evolution of mathematics which has ever fallen into my hands. If people know how to treasure the truly good, this book will attain a lasting place in the literature of the world. The evolution of mathematical thought from the earliest times to the latest constructions is presented here with admirable consistency and originality and in a wonderfully lively style.""
¿Albert Einstein
""Tobias Dantzig's Number: The Language of Science is one of the truly great classics of mathematical exposition, perhaps the most lucid history of the number concept ever written. Its republication should be a cause for celebration by every scientifically minded person, regardless of his or her mathematical background.""
¿Eli Maor, author of e: The Story of a Number and To Infinity and Beyond
""Tobias Dantzig's Number is a classic. A fascinating account of the evolution of mathematics, it deserves a place on the bookshelf of anyone who is interested in the history of thought.""
¿Charles Seife, author of Zero and Alpha and Omega
""A classic! Anyone interested in the history of numbers and mathematics should read this book.""
¿Mario Livio, author of The Golden Ratio
From the rudimentary mathematical abilities of prehistoric man to the counterintuitive and bizarre ideas at the edges of modern math, this masterpiece of science writing tells the story of mathematics through the history of its most central concept: number.
Dantzig succeeds in his aim to reveal a human story, and in making that story accessible to the non-expert. In his friendly and welcoming style, he shows how math developed from basic faculties present in us all, beginning with our ""number sense""¿the ability to discern that an object has been added to or removed from a small collection of objects without counting. The subsequent evolution of the concept of number is inextricably linked with the history of human culture, as Dantzig demonstrates. He shows how advances in math were spurred by the demands of growing commerce in the ancient world; how the pure speculation of philosophers and religious mystics contributed to our understanding of numbers; how the exchange of ideas between cultures in times of war and imperial conquest fueled advances in knowledge; and, ultimately, how the forces of history combine with human intuition to trigger revolutions in thought.
Sweeping in scope, Number is an open doorway into the world of math. Dantzig explains the foundations of mathematics with ease, and eloquently explores deeper philosophical questions that arise along the way. He describes the properties of all kinds of numbers¿integers, primes, irrationals, transcendentals, and more. He explains the significance of zero, and shows that its invention had revolutionary consequences for arithmetic. He shows how the invention of symbols for use in algebra¿a radical departure from tradition at the time¿ushered in a new era of math; how arithmetic and geometry reflect each other; and how calculus uses infinity to model the continuity of space and time.
With a new afterword, notes section, and bibliography written by math professor and author Joseph Mazur, and a new foreword by mathematician Barry Mazur, the Masterpiece Science edition of Number¿which was first published in 1930¿is the first update of Dantzig's classic work in over fifty years. It is a story that ranges from the dawn of man to the genius of history's greatest mathematicians, vividly revealing how the pursuit of knowledge transcends the rise and fall of civilizations."
Customer Reviews:
Interesting theory overview of maths, algebra, and arithmetic.......2007-07-03
Sometimes a bit tough, but in general very interesting to read the theory behind the various kinds of numbers. Including what we nromally would not see as a number..
The best book about the history of numbers and the philosophical ramifications of new discoveries that I have seen.......2007-05-14
The historical development of the different types of numbers mirrors the development of civilization. It all starts with the fingers and toes, which allowed for simple counting and the fact that we use base ten is due to the fact that humans have ten of each. The first chapter, "Fingerprints", demonstrates this. Chapter two describes what was an enormous achievement in improving the efficiency of arithmetic, the development of positional notation and the zero. It is hard for the modern person to look back and appreciate how revolutionary a development this was. Like most other inventions, it was necessity that drove the creation. As economies began to expand when Europe emerged from the Dark Ages, the numbers being used on a daily basis grew more frequent and larger. Roman Numerals were inadequate and inefficient, and it is hard to see how commerce and finance could have expanded as much as they did had positional notation not become the norm.
One of the most interesting and illuminating facts in on page 26. A university student is told that the German Universities were inadequate in providing instruction in multiplication and division, that to truly learn how to perform them, one must attend an Italian University. It is a demonstration of how far we have come in our educational system that what is now done in public grade schools was once considered advanced university education, not available everywhere.
Simple, universal notations also played a significant role in the development of mathematics, which is the topic of chapter five. Without the symbols to concisely express the operations of mathematics, it is difficult to see how mathematics could have advanced as fast or as far as it has. The development of the remaining numbers, such as fractions and irrational numbers are explained in great detail and in the appropriate historical context. The last chapter, "The Two Realities", is a philosophical examination regarding the extent to which numbers correspond to reality. Numbers are examined relative to subjective and objective realities. Counting processes are considered to be objective realities, because there is no subjective interpretation to be applied. Everyone can agree on the number of objects in a set, and Dantzig expounds in great length about how we should consider numbers to be "real." It is an interesting demonstration of thinking about how the various sets of numbers are considered and manipulated.
This is the best book about the historical development of numbers and the philosophical ramifications of new discoveries that I have seen. We humans use all kinds of numbers with an ease that would astonish learned men of only a few centuries ago. Dantzig writes so well in his descriptions of numbers that one really doesn't even need a background in algebra to understand this book.
Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission.
So deserves its "classic" status.......2006-12-15
NLS is, in a word, masterful. It is a fascinating and penetrating introduction to the "language of science". After laying a foundation of first principles (what is a number, what does it mean to count), Dantzig goes on to construct a veritable cathedral of mathematics. As the reader climbs ever higher, the mathematics Dantzig describes grows increasingly abstruse, but the exposition remains lucid and compelling throughout. Dantzig is a terrific guide -- an exceedingly good writer and a very deep thinker. Many of the concepts developed in NLS are treated ad nauseum in the popular mathematics literature, but nowhere as clearly. After reading the opening pages of NLS, I was impressed with the writing (very literary in style) but was skeptical that I would learn much from this slim volume. How very wrong I was. Time and again Dantzig clarified concepts and connections that have long eluded my full grasp. NLS is a superb book, and a fascinating read. This new edition is a useful improvement on its predecessors -- with excellent endnotes and bibliography, and a well-considered division of the book into text and appendices.
A Human Story.......2006-04-02
The striking facts about Danzig's book are :
1. It does not claim to be a 'popular' science book. At the outset, he warns the reader ".. it is not written for those who are afflicted with an incurable horror of the symbol". In doing so, I think he has gained more readership, simply because noone likes to be patronised, and most 'popular' science books are extremely patronising.
2. He makes it a point to explain to the reader that mathematics is not something that was made by the Hand of God. He clearly explains the mistakes made by some of the most eminent mathematicians, and thus brings out the 'human' element in the evolution of mathematics very beautifully.
3. He interweaves his philosophy with that of the history of math, and thus makes it eminently readable.
Postmodern mathematics?.......2005-07-11
Einstein called this "the most interesting book on the evolution of mathematics which has ever fallen into my hands."
Number was first published in 1930 with the fourth edition coming out in 1954. This is a republication of that fourth edition (Dantzig died in 1956) edited by Joseph Mazur with a foreword by Barry Mazur. It is an eminently readable book like something from the pages of that fascinating four-volume work The World of Mathematics (1956) edited by James R. Newman in that it is aimed at mathematicians and the educated lay public alike.
Part history, part mathematics and part philosophy, Number is the story of how we humans got from "one, two...many" to various levels of infinity. Strange to say it is also about reality. Here is Dantzig's concluding statement from page 341 in Appendix D: "...modern science differs from its classical predecessor: it has recognized the anthropomorphic origin and nature of human knowledge. Be it determinism or rationality, empiricism or the mathematical method, it has recognized that man is the measure of all things, and that there is no other measure."
Or more pointedly from a couple of pages earlier: "Man's confident belief in the absolute validity of the two methods [mathematics and experiment] has been found to be of an anthropomorphic origin; both have been found to rest on articles of faith."
These are inescapably the statements of a postmodernist. I was surprised to read them in a book on the theory of numbers, and even more surprised to realize that if mathematics is a distinctly human language, it is entirely possible that beings from distant worlds may speak an entirely different language; and therefore our attempts to use what many consider the "universal" language of mathematics to communicate with them may be in vain.
And this thought makes me wonder. Is the concept "two," for example, (as opposed to the number "2") really just a human construction? Would not intelligent life anywhere be able to make a distinction, just as we have, between, say, two things and three things? And if so, would they not be able to count? And would not then the entire edifice of mathematics (or at least most of it) follow?
I wonder if Dantzig was not in contradiction with himself on this point because earlier he writes (p. 252) "...any measuring device, however simple and natural it may appear to us, implies the whole apparatus of the arithmetic of real numbers: behind any scientific instrument there is the master-instrument, arithmetic, without which the special device can neither be used nor even conceived." Does this not imply that measurements (by any beings) and therefore numbers have an existence outside of the human mind and do not rest on "articles of faith"?
As to the numbers themselves (putting philosophy aside) we learn that the two biggest bugaboos in the history of number are zero and infinity. It took a long, long time for humans, as Dantzig relates, to accept the idea of zero as a number. Today zero is also a place-holder. But what does it mean to say that there are zero pink elephants dancing about my living room? I can see one cow in the yard, or two or three, but I cannot see zero cows in the yard.
Of course, today it is easy to see that zero is a number that is less than one and greater than minus one. I have one cow and I sell that one cow. Now I have zero cows. (Curiously, note that the plural noun "cows" is grammatically required.) However, the imperfect fit within the entire structure of mathematics that zero has achieved may be appreciated by realizing that every other number can be a denominator; that is, three over one equals three, three over two equals 1.5, etc., but what does three over zero equal?
It is a convention of mathematics to say that division by zero is "undefined." There is no other number about which the same can be said.
I used to think when I was young that infinity was the proper answer to division by zero. For Dantzig this is clearly not correct because to him infinity is not a number at all but a part of the process. He writes, "the concept of infinity has been woven into the very fabric of our generalized number concept." He adds, "The domain of natural numbers rested on the assumption that the operation of adding one can be repeated indefinitely, and it was expressly stipulated that never shall the ultra-ultimate step of this process be itself regarded as a number." Of course he is talking about "natural" numbers. He notes in the next sentence that in the generalization to "real" numbers, "the limits of these processes" were "admitted...as bona fide numbers." (p. 245) In other words, part of the process became a number itself!
The culmination of Dantzig's argument here is that infinity itself is a construction of the human mind and exists nowhere (that we can prove) outside of the human mind. He believes that the basis for our belief in the existence of infinity comes from our (erroneous) conception of time as a continuum. Dantzig notes that Planck time and indeed all aspects of the world are to be seen in terms of discrete quanta and not continuous streams.
Ultimately, Dantzig gives this sweeping advice to the scientist: "...he will be wise to wonder what role his mind has played in...[a] discovery, and whether the beautiful image he sees in the pool of eternity reveals the nature of this eternity, or is but a reflection of his own mind." (p. 242)
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The Environment and Emerging Development Issues: Volume 2 (W I D E R Studies in Development Economics)
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 Policy & Current Events
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General
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Development & Growth
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Economic Policy & Development
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Natural Resources
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ASIN: 0198287682 |
Book Description
Two and a half billion people are affected directly on a day to day basis by the allocation and use of purely local resources. Yet `official' development economics has concentrated on headline international issues and only recently begun to take account of the dependence of poor countries on their natural resources, the link between acute poverty and environmental degredation, and the problems associated with the management of local common property such as soil and soil cover, water, forests and their products, animals and fisheries. In these volumes, which are part of the WIDER programme on the Economics of the Environment, expert contributors provide a set of authoritative studies of emerging development issues, ranging from foundational matters to case studies, original research (in areas where there has been a paucity of work) to survey papers. They address both analytic and empirical issues on the role of environmental resources in the development process, presenting explanations of existing situations and policies for the future. A wealth of interests and backgrounds is represented and reflected in the cross-fertilization between papers.
Books:
- The Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Hegel and Philosophy of Right (Routledge Philosophy Guidebooks)
- The Ruins: Or, Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires: And the Law of Nature.
- The Sicilian Vespers: A History of the Mediterranean World in the Later Thirteenth Century (Canto)
- The Structure of Being in Aristotle's Metaphysics (The New Synthese Historical Library)
- The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Ancient Egypt
- The Timetables of American History
- The Vietnam War Almanac
- The Visigoths from the Migration Period to the Seventh Century: An Ethnographic Perspective (Studies in Historical Archaeoethnology)
- The West Point Atlas of American Wars: 1900-1918 (West Point Atlas of American Wars)
- The World We Have Lost: Further Explored
Books Index
Books Home
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- Parachute Infantry: An American Paratrooper's Memoir of D-Day and the Fall of the Third Reich
- Anchor Hocking Catalogs, 1940-present
- Jamestown: A Novel
- The southern fern guide, Southeastern and South-midland United States
The First World War - The Complete Series
The First World War, Second Edition: A Complete History
The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War
The First World War
The Routledge Atlas of American History (Routledge Historical Atlases)
