Encyclopedia of China: The Essential Reference to China, Its History and Culture

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Encyclopedia of China is a goldmine of information on the world's most populous country. It's easy to read, written in a lively and straightforward style, and filled with fascinating detail. Unfortunately, it displays a strong Sinocentricity, conscious or not, reinforcing the monolithic face that China likes to present to the world. The accomplishments of minorities and neighbors are marginalized, and Uighurs, Tibetans, and Vietnamese, to name a few, will be surprised at the book's ignorance of their history and achievements. Monkeys get more space than Mongolians, who ruled China for a century and substantially changed many aspects of Chinese culture. This tendency might be expected, but it is not inevitable. The book ignores well-publicized archaeological discoveries, such as Sanxingdui, that indicate China's heterogeneous origins; the highly sophisticated and influential Kingdom of Chu does not even rate an entry.

The subject-titles include English, Mandarin, Cantonese, and other transliterations of Chinese, whatever most corresponds to the Western reader's probable encounter with a word; this informality is helpful and refreshing. The encyclopedia's usefulness would be immensely increased by including Chinese characters, however, especially as Chinese is a language of homonyms. A decade ago this omission would have been excusable, but the editorial work required for simple one- or two-character entries would not have been prohibitive, and today's software makes the typesetting easy. Everyone has his own ideas on the relative importance of entries, but this reviewer found the space given to Western Communist sympathizers excessive (Sidney Rittenberg surely merits less space than the whole of Chinese agriculture). More illustrations would be welcome, as would bibliographic references at the end of important entries. Despite these comments, Encyclopedia of China is strongly recommended to the student and general reader for its wealth of easily accessible facts. --John Stevenson

Customer Reviews:

Impressively informative.......2001-03-14

This encyclopedia is truly packed with tons of noteworthy information from a range of all topics including calligraphy, martial arts ,landscape paintings, history, daily customs, food, geography, etc.. It's a real pleasure to sweep through it when you're looking for something accurate or even to learn for your own. The major drawback about this encyclopedia is the obvious lack of pictures or reproductions that might liven up the whole.

Overall, it's a fairly excellent guide to understanding China, and is almost a must-buy for anyone involved in Chinese Civilization studies, but it is also a very pleasant book for leisure sinophiles!!

Book Description

"I walked across the highway and stood on the bank overlooking Lake Roosevelt. My attention was directed to the area where Kettle Falls once flowed. As I stood there the wind came. As I listened I imagined that it talked to me. It seemed that it was telling me of how things once were. I began to think of friends and relatives who were no longer living. They began to appear before me, perched on the large rocks, fishing for the great salmon."

In his distinctive voice, Lawney Reyes, grandson of Pic Ah Kelowna or White Grizzly Bear of the Sin Aikst, relates the history of his family and his people. The Sin Aikst are now known as the Lakes tribe, absorbed into the Colville Confederated Tribes of eastern Washington. And where Kettle Falls once flowed and the Sin Aikst once fished are places that exist now only in memory, flooded when the Grand Coulee Dam was completed in 1942. Reyes uses personal and family history to explore the larger forces that have confronted all Native Americans: displacement, acculturation, and the potent force of self-renewal.

The son of a Filipino immigrant and a mother who traced her ancestry to the earliest known leaders of the Sin Aikst, Reyes paints a vivid picture of his early life in the Indian village of Inchelium, destroyed by the building of the dam. Reyes describes the loss of homeland and traditional ways of life, the scarcities that followed, and the experiences of a court-ordered Indian boarding school in Oregon. These well-known facts of loss and injustice take on a compelling dimension in Reyes's blend of history and autobiography, brought to life by the vivid images and personalities he describes.

Despite the loss of heritage beneath the waters of the Columbia River and the flood of white acculturation, Reyes and his younger brother, the late Native American leader Bernie Whitebear, were able to fashion rich lives in a changed world, lives that honor the past while engaging with the present.

"White Grizzly Bear's Legacy gives new insight into the drowning of Kettle Falls, what it was like to live in Old Inchelium as flooding forced people to move, the character of Coulee City during the days of dam construction, boarding school life at Chemawa, being a kid in a logging camp and in an orchard where your dad worked for a season."--Ruth Kirk, author of Exploring Washington's Past

Customer Reviews:

Read and understand a beautiful soul........2002-10-22

Lawney Reyes is the artistic member of a remarkable Native American family. His brother was Bernie Whitebear, the leader who founded United Indians of All Tribes Foundation in Seattle and led the fight to build the Daybreak Star Cultural Center at Fort Lawton. Their sister, Luanna, was responsible for the establishment of the Seattle Indian Women's Health League. And Lawney, well, Lawney is a superb artist who has created many, many beautiful sculptures and works of art that grace homes, buildings and institutions throughout our state. He is a quiet and unassuming man who has written a quiet and unassuming book of great power and grace. Read it and understand the man. Read it and understand his family, his people, his odyssey. Marvel at the character and talent that has found expression in Lawney and his brother and sister. Thanks to the University of Washington Press for publishing this book so that more people can know and remember.

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A Feast for the Eye, Mind and Spirit

The Visual Mind II (Leonardo Books)

Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Using Color | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
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How Images Think

ASIN: 0262050765

Book Description

Mathematical forms rendered visually can give aesthetic pleasure; certain works of art -- Max Bill's Moebius band sculpture, for example -- can seem to be mathematics made visible. This collection of essays by artists and mathematicians continues the discussion of the connections between art and mathematics begun in the widely read first volume of The Visual Mind in 1993.

Mathematicians throughout history have created shapes, forms, and relationships, and some of these can be expressed visually. Computer technology allows us to visualize mathematical forms and relationships in new detail using, among other techniques, 3D modeling and animation. The Visual Mind proposes to compare the visual ideas of artists and mathematicians -- not to collect abstract thoughts on a general theme, but to allow one point of view to encounter another. The contributors, who include art historian Linda Dalrymple Henderson and filmmaker Peter Greenaway, examine mathematics and aesthetics; geometry and art; mathematics and art; geometry, computer graphics, and art; and visualization and cinema. They discuss such topics as aesthetics for computers, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, cubism and relativity in twentieth-century art, the aesthetic value of optimal geometry, and mathematics and cinema.

Customer Reviews:

A Feast for the Eye, Mind and Spirit.......2005-07-23

This splendid book is a feast for the eye, mind, and spirit. It is a sequel to the 1993 book, The Visual Mind: Art and Mathematics, also edited by Michelle Emmer, an Italian professor of mathematics. It uses visual examples and thoughtful essays to explore the intersection of the disciplines of mathematics and art.

Here are some highlights of this fascinating collection: There are several articles on mathematically-themed sculptures that display unusual concavities, knots, interlacements, and Mobius-style twists, with detailed analyses by their creators. There is an essay relating Picasso's cubism to Einstein's Theory of Relativity; another uses computer simulation to generate approximations of Paul Klee's art; a third illustrates explains the importance of circle packings in Japanese art and culture. There is a beautifully- photographed description of architect Frank Gehry's computer-assisted development of models for the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. Also outstanding are essays on the depiction of mathematics and mathematicians in relatively recent movies and another on the role of beauty in the evolution of mathematical proofs.

My one complaint is that these articles are very uneven in terms of overall quality and accessibility by non-mathematicians; some are scholarly papers that require the knowledge of college-level mathematics.

This book is excellent; however Emmer's first book, mentioned above, is even better. It's out of print but well worth searching for.

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Masterpiece!

Geometry and the Visual Arts
Dan Pedoe
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 048624458X

Book Description

Traces effects of geometry on artistic achievement and clearly discusses its importance to artists, scientists, architects, philosophers and others. Special chapters on Vitruvius, Albrecht Dürer and da Vinci, plus a survey of projective geometry, mathematical curves, theories of perspective, architectural form and concepts of space.

Customer Reviews:

Masterpiece!.......2001-01-27

Most books about arts and mathematics are written by non-mathematicians and often contain dubious or unclear statements. The late professor Pedoe was not just an outstanding mathematician, but also a great expositor. This book shows the breadth of his scholarship.

It is not as flashy as some of the modern books. If you are looking for pretty pictures, then this is not the book for you. However, if you are looking for mathematically and historically correct info, and you have the persistence to actually read it, you will be rewarded.

Book Description

Scientific visualization, higher-dimensional geometries, 3D computer modeling, computer animation, and imaginary and virtual environments are just a few of the ground-breaking areas in which artists and mathematicians are exchanging ideas and working together. The Visual Mind introduces a new universe of mathematical images, forms, and shapes in media ranging from drawings to computer graphics, as well as discussion of the methods used to create these works.

These 35 chapters are by mathematicians concerned with the visual fruits of their computations and by visual artists concerned with the mathematical origins and inspirations of their works. They are divided into sections covering Geometry and Visualization; Computer Graphics; Geometry and Art; Symmetry; and Perspective Mathematics and Art. The chapters are tied together by introductions to each of these sections and are richly illustrated in color and black and white.

Michele Emmer is Professor of Mathematics at the Università ca' Foscari, Venice, Italy.

Forms of Color: The Interaction of Visual Elements

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Forms of Color: The Interaction of Visual Elements
Karl Gerstner
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0262570815

Book Description

Swiss artist and designer, Karl Gerstner draws on artistic literary, and scientific sources, as well as on his own studio work to investigate the basic visual elements of color and form. Inspired by Wassily Kandinsky, Gerstner explores the ideas of continuous and evenly measured changes in the three dimensions of color - hue, tone, and saturation.

Varieties of Realism: Geometries of Representational Art (Cambridge Paperback Library)

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Varieties of Realism: Geometries of Representational Art (Cambridge Paperback Library)
Margaret A. Hagen
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0521313295

Book Description

Varieties of Realism argues that it is not possible to represent the layout of objects and surfaces in space outside the dictates of formal visual geometry, the geometry of natural perspective. The book examines most of the worldâ€™s coherent representational art styles, both in terms of the geometry of their creation and in terms of their perceptual effects on the viewer. A lucid exposition of modern geometrical principles and relations, accessible to the nonmathematical reader, is followed by an analysis of all known styles as variants of natural perspective, as true varieties of realism. Delineating the physical and mechanical constraints that determine the act of visual representation in painting and drawing, the author traces the intimate relations among seemingly distant styles and considers the kind of perceptual information about the world each can carry. Margaret Hagen is a perceptual psychologist with an ecological point of view. Her rigorous but readable presentation of visual theory and research offers provocative new insights into the connections among vision, geometry, and art.

An Adventure in Multidimensional Space: The Art and Geometry of Polygons, Polyhedra, and Polytopes

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An Adventure in Multidimensional Space: The Art and Geometry of Polygons, Polyhedra, and Polytopes
Koji Miyazaki
Manufacturer: John Wiley & Sons
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Geometry of Visual Phonology (Center for the Study of Language and Information - Lecture Notes)

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The Geometry of Visual Phonology (Center for the Study of Language and Information - Lecture Notes)
Linda Ann N. Uyechi
Manufacturer: Center for the Study of Language and Inf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1575860139

Book Description

Uyechi presents an extremely thorough and formal empirical description of the various features of ASL signs, of interest to any theoretician in developing a theory of sign phonology or in testing claims in the theory of the phonology of spoken languages against data from a signed language. The author also presents a formalism for representing signs and makes a number of theoretical proposals based on this formalism. The volumeâ€™s analysis indicates that the properties of core constructs of the spoken-language phonology, namely the segment and the syllable, differ from the properties of the core constructs in a formal framework of visual phonology. The Geometry of Visual Phonology also differs from other analyses in concluding that such differences are not immediately reconcilable. This volume provides a framework for discussing crucial differences between signs and speech.

The Heritage of Giotto's Geometry: Art and Science on the Eve of the Scientific Revolution

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A brilliant synthesis of art history and history of science
The Scientific Heritage of Linear Perspective

The Heritage of Giotto's Geometry: Art and Science on the Eve of the Scientific Revolution
Samuel Y. Edgerton
Manufacturer: Cornell Univ Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | History & Criticism | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0801425735

Book Description

Winner of the 1992 Helen and Howard R. Marraro Prize from the American Historical Association

"Edgerton's interdisciplinary study is a bold attempt to show how the perception of the world, as slowly refined by the Renaissance artists, provided the impetus behind the scientific revolution. . . . An ambitious and largely persuasive book." --Nature

"Edgerton's book is learned and richly illustrated with paintings and drawings from the Middle Ages, the Italian Renaissance, and contemporaneous Chinese dynasties. . . . [His] argument is intricate and flawless." --American Historical Review

Customer Reviews:

A brilliant synthesis of art history and history of science.......2001-12-19

Anyone who dares to write about Renaissance art faces a daunting task. The field is dense, the historiography deep, and finding anything new to say sometimes seems impossible. This makes Samuel Edgerton's "Heritage of Giotto's Geometry" all the more remarkable. Edgerton's big question is this: Why did the Scientific Revolution take place in Europe, and catch on first in Italy? He argues that the development in the arts-- most critically the invention of linear perspective, but also innovations in technical drawing, chiaroscuro, and the use of geometry in art-- were the catalyst. The book discusses familiar art historical subjects, mining and medical books, Galileo's drawings of the moon, and Chinese drawings of Western engravings: an amazing range of materials. The book is a model of erudition in another way: it demonstrates how traditional scholarly detective work and clear prose can be used in the service of deeply radical arguments. The book has less jargon than a trendy journal's table of contents.

The Scientific Heritage of Linear Perspective.......2000-08-26

Have you ever been to Florence? If so, perhaps you are aware that one of the greatest achievements of the Western artistic revolution, namely the invention of linear perspective, occurred there in the heart of Tuscany. Edgerton examines the relationship between that artistic revolution and the scientific revolution which began with Galileo in this same city. He points out that it was a tradition of medieval Christian doctrine for the privelidged gentry to know Euclidean geometry, since one might discover in Euclidean geometry God's very thinking process. Geometric linear perspective was invented and quickly accepted in western Europe as Christians thought that they were then perceiving a replica of the same underlying structure of reality that God concieved in the act of Creation. Edgerton explains that the new way in which this reality was represented, using the tools of linear perspective and chiaroscuro, invented by Renaissance artists, paved the way for scientific practice, impacting both science and technology. He demonstrates a knowledge of church history, geometry, optics, art and history of science. The book is packed with interesting illustrations. All in all it is a fascinating account of two important revolutions and their interconnectedness.

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Introduction to the Visual Arts

Manufacturer: Tudor Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000BUKH3E

Product Description

"... a book the shows how the mechancis of art-drawing, painting, ceramics, etc.-embody the very same principles that are inherent in a Michelangelo sculpture, a painting by Rembrandt, a Persian miniature, a French cathedral."

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The Judgement of the Eye
Jurgen Weber
Manufacturer: Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 321183768X

Book Description

The sculptor, JÃ¼rgen Weber, whose work is to be found in many parts of the world â€“ from Washington D.C. to Nuremberg â€“ presents his experience of how forms convey contents. He does not ask the usual questions about perception, but rather he is concerned with how the visual world expresses information over and above its mere existence. Is it experience that allows us to differentiate between a dangerous face and one that inspires trust? Is that the reason why we see that buds will soon open, that leaves will unfurl, that trees have had to grow in all weathers or do we have at our disposal categories which we use to pass judgement? The way that our visual environment conveys its information to us is one of the most important questions for our survival. Up till now it has rarely been investigated in a systematic and scientific way. Weber assumes that the visual areas of our brains have geometrical categories at their disposal with which they compare the visual phenomena of our environment. Conclusions are then drawn from the differences to them. This is the basis upon which he also explains our visual memories. He brings together various disciplines ranging from psychiatry, childrenâ€™s drawings, comparable archaeological finds and works of art, to the observation of nature, his own experiments as an artist and surveys of thousands of his students and has thus developed a new theory of perception which also considerably extends our knowledge about threedimensional sight. There is no doubt that this book represents a unique, timely contribution to the many disciplines that are concerned with the wonder of perception. It might even influence the development of computer science.

Book Description

The authors, both award-winning reporters for The Philadelphia Inquirer, shared a fascination with the great Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962 that slammed into the Atlantic Coast, devastating sections of the New Jersey Shore. They set out in April of 1998 to examine the history and impact of that storm. It soon became clear that the storm was a pivotal event in the development of the coast. Instead of retreating to higher ground, speculators and builders rushed to rebuild on the waters' edge, driving up land values. Now, billions of dollars in developments line the nations beaches, built on sand, awaiting the wrath of nature.

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