Book Description
Why do catastrophes happen? What sets off earthquakes, for example? What about mass extinctions of species? The outbreak of major wars? Massive traffic jams that seem to appear out of nowhere? Why does the stock market periodically suffer dramatic crashes? Why do some forest fires become superheated infernos that rage totally out of control?
Experts have never been able to explain the causes of any of these disasters. Now scientists have discovered that these seemingly unrelated cataclysms, both natural and human, almost certainly all happen for one fundamental reason. More than that, there is not and never will be any way to predict them.
Critically acclaimed science journalist Mark Buchanan tells the fascinating story of the discovery that there is a natural structure of instability woven into the fabric of our world. From humble beginnings studying the physics of sandpiles, scientists have learned that an astonishing range of things–Earth’s crust, cars on a highway, the market for stocks, and the tightly woven networks of human society–have a natural tendency to organize themselves into what’s called the “critical state,” in which they are poised on what Buchanan describes as the “knife-edge of instability.” The more places scientists have looked for the critical state, the more places they’ve found it, and some believe that the pervasiveness of instability must now be seen as a fundamental feature of our world.
Ubiquity is packed with stories of real-life catastrophes, such as the huge earthquake that in 1995 hit Kobe, Japan, killing 5,000 people; the forest fires that ravaged Yellowstone National Park in 1988; the stock market crash of 1987; the mass extinction that killed off the dinosaurs; and the outbreak of World War I. Combining literary flair with scientific rigor, Buchanan introduces the researchers who have pieced together the evidence of the critical state, explaining their ingenious work and unexpected insights in beautifully lucid prose.
At the dawn of this new century, Buchanan reveals, we are witnessing the emergence of an extraordinarily powerful new field of science that will help us comprehend the bewildering and unruly rhythms that dominate our lives and may even lead to a true science of the dynamics of human culture and history.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
Caos theory.......2007-06-14
I was unable to finish this book though it was recommended by a cousin. I just found that I got lost in all the formulas and expected outcomes. but I am sure that it is good research, just not for me.
Dissapointing ...........2007-01-09
It was well recommended to me but I found it quite boring and found myself fast forwarding through the chapters. It has an interesting theme - the cause of natural catastrophes - but for a science book I found it quite dissapoiting...
Good, but no answers really........2006-07-24
Its an interesting read. The reason I didnt give it 5 stars is that I have already read one of Marks previous books (Nexus) which has some overlap (not a lot) with this book. In fact it would be beneficial to readers to read the Nexus book before reading this one as what he writes about in that book really helps to understand this book.
I was really hoping for some more answers on how to predict things based on what Mark talks about but that is the essential outcome of the book, you cant predict things!
One of the best.......2006-05-28
This is the book that I would like to have written. Although being a popular account, it is scientifically accurate and carefull in its suggestions, always informing the reader what is consolidated science and what is scientific speculation.
In contrast to a previous review, I have read all the pages of this book. Since I am a physicist working in this very subject (self-organized criticality), I probably can say that if someone use the example of a Gaussian (bell shaped curve) to illustrate that the power laws discussed in the book are trivial, well, this person have not understood anything.
Gaussians have exponential decays, so they predict that very larg events (catastrophes) will occur with vanishing probability. For example, the heigh of people is distributed as a Gaussian. What is the probability of finding a 3 meter person?
Zero.
Distributions wich have power law tails, depending on the power exponent, may have no well defined variance or even average value. This means that there is no "average" earthquake, and that very big earthquakes (or other cathastrophes) are not "acts of God" but have a no desprezible chance of occur due to simple chain reactions of events.
I have introduced my students to ideas like critical states and modern physical thinking by using this book. So, I can recommend it to any reader without reserve. The emphasis by the author that critical chain reactions of events must be accounted by any view of History and Society is an important mind tool in our increasing interconnected (and, because it, prone to global chain reactions) world.
Much ado about nothing.......2006-03-19
I found this book incredibly boring. OK, I know this goes against the grain of other reviewers here. And I'll admit I'm only through the first 85 pages. But I already have that Ayn Rand feeling that the entire book is just going to rehash what's already been said.
I agree there are some interesting ideas, basically that we can't predict stuff very well. But here are a couple of examples of where Buchanan makes me suspicious that he really has the "Ph.D. in theoretical physics" stated on the back. The most egregious example so far, I think, is his statement on p. 85 that "take some really small number, such as .0001, change it by 10 percent, or even multiply it by 2 or 10 or 100 and you still have a very small number."
This, coming from a guy who has written page after page about scale invariance, seems just ludicrous. What on earth can he possibly mean by this nonsense??
Another example is his discussion of getting the friction issues wrong with the sliding blocks. Then he says, hey, but what about heat? (Bottom of p. 59). As if this great insight takes care of the problem of friction. How can a Ph.D. physicist make the mistake of thinking that heat is a new way of dealing with friction (duh?)
Another is his comment (bottom of p. 80) that the use of constants in the great differential equations of physics is some way mitigates the problem of tuning the blocks. He gives "c" in Maxwell's Equations and "h" in Quantum Mechanics, as examples of these. He writes "almost every good theory in the world has some numbers in it that have to be tuned to make the theory fit reality." But the "tuning" he's talking about with the sandpile and other games, has to do with the basic structure of the differential equations. "c" is a RESULT of Maxwell's Equations, not some "tuning" factor. It is true that the existence of Planck's constant is a fundamental feature of the equations, but its VALUE is simply a number that makes experimental observations work in SI units. Now Einstein's "cosmological constant" is much more like what Buchanan is talking about. But by this time one wonders if he really has a point here, or is just rambling on to cover up his hand-waving, and hoping he can get his book sold.
In my opinion, here is what this book is saying:
Let's take the example of the average temperature for my city on a given calendar date. The facts are these: the temperature over history for that date follows a bell-shaped curve. There IS a typical temperature. But the VARIATION of the actual temperature TODAY (i.e. a particular day) from the typical temperature is NOT very easy to predict. In fact, there is no TYPICAL VARIATION.
All we can say is that most days will have a small variation from the norm, and fewer days will have a larger variation from the norm. The "power law" concerns this variability. The larger the variability, the less likely it is to occur. If the average over time is 65 degrees, a lot of days in history will have had an average of 66 degrees on that date, and only a very few will have an average of 76 degrees on that date. Why is this fact worth writing an entire hold-your-breath book about?
Most days have no earthquakes. But when an earthquake DOES occur, we can't predict how big it will be. All we can say is that there will be more small earthquakes than large ones.
Well, duh!!
Yawn.
Book Description
Information technology helps to improve the quality of healthcare by disseminating and systematizing knowledge of diagnostic and therapeutic possibilities as well as the organization and management of care. Unobtrusive, active, non-invasive technologies, including wearable devices, allow us to continuously monitor and respond to changes in the health of a patient. Such devices range from micro-sensors integrated in textiles, through consumer electronics, to belt-worn personal computers with head mounted displays. Such ubiquitous computing allows us to identify new ways of managing care that promises to be considerably easier in letting patients maintain their good health while enjoying their life in their usual social setting, rather than having to spend much time at costly, dedicated healthcare facilities. It may prove essential for ensuring quality of life as well as healthcare for increasingly aging societies.
Book Description
What are the assumptions and tasks hidden in contemporary calls to "overcome" the metaphysical tradition? Reflecting upon the internal contradictions of the notions of "tradition" and "finiteness," Dennis J. Schmidt offers novel insights into how philosophy must relate to its traditions if it is to retain a vital sense of the plurality of "edges" that constitute its finiteness. He does this through a close examination of issues found in the work of Hegel and Heidegger, two philosophers who made the ideas of both tradition and finiteness the center of their concern.
Schmidt begins by asking how Heidegger can claim to have destroyed metaphysics despite Hegel's claim to have perfected its possibilities. Systematically following the development of Heidegger's critique of Hegel, Schmidt generates a dialogue between them. The topic of that dialogue is the nature of finiteness as it is articulated in time, nothing, the dialectical and hermeneutical circles, and in the notions of experience, work, technology, history, and preSocratic thought.
Beginning with Heidegger's critique of Hegel in Being and Time, Schmidt's strategy is to disclose the complexities of philosophical discourse about the finite by drawing out the proximities between Hegel and Heidegger. The dialogue that results presents novel portraits of both philosophers. It also reveals that Heidegger's early, unacknowledged failure to separate himself from the Hegelian dialectic is the motive behind many of the turns and decisions of his later career.
In concluding, Schmidt offers an interpretation of the wider significance of the results of that dialogue, and connects his study to other contemporary discussions of postmodernism. He expands upon the idea of the plurality of edges opened by finiteness, arguing that philosophy only understands its own past and future once it recognizes the meaning of its own finiteness.
Dennis J. Schmidt is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Binghamton. The Ubiquity of the Finite is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy.
Customer Reviews:
Good, concise, thorough, insightful.......2001-03-19
A good and thorough beginning to the study of Heidegger. Well written and argued, very persuasive. Recommended for interested readers in post-Kantian continental philosophy.
A clear and helpful analysis of a difficult topic.......2001-01-12
Schmidt writes clearly and analytically about texts not readily understandable.
A Good Book, I like it!.......2000-03-26
A good, interesting (but somewhat overly academic) study of the ebb and flow of post-Kantian continental thought. Worth reading for philosophy majors and those interested in philosophical exegisis.
Amazon.com
Earthquakes, market crashes, hurricanes, wars: are these random forces of nature, or foreseeable blips on the radar screen of history? In this lively book, science journalist Mark Buchanan introduces readers to a developing branch of science that looks for order in what seems to be utmost chaos.
In the late 1980s, three physicists set out to investigate the apparently inherent instability of complex systems. In a process that Buchanan illustrates by analogy with a sand pile, they discovered that these systems tend to arrive at a "critical state," after which point any random grain falling in just the right place can touch off an avalanche. So it is, Buchanan shows us, with the onset of world wars, economic shocks, traffic gridlock, and other dislocating events--all of which this new science may one day help predict.
In clear and vigorous prose, Buchanan brings readers insights from nonequilibrium physics, offering a new way of seeing the "fingers of instability" that poke through the world's fabric--and that in turn make it such an interesting place. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
Why do catastrophes happen? What sets off earthquakes, for example? What about mass extinctions of species? The outbreak of major wars? Massive traffic jams that seem to appear out of nowhere? Why does the stock market periodically suffer dramatic crashes? Why do some forest fires become superheated infernos that rage totally out of control?
Experts have never been able to explain the causes of any of these disasters. Now scientists have discovered that these seemingly unrelated cataclysms, both natural and human, almost certainly all happen for one fundamental reason. More than that, there is not and never will be any way to predict them.
Critically acclaimed science journalist Mark Buchanan tells the fascinating story of the discovery that there is a natural structure of instability woven into the fabric of our world. From humble beginnings studying the physics of sandpiles, scientists have learned that an astonishing range of things–Earth’s crust, cars on a highway, the market for stocks, and the tightly woven networks of human society–have a natural tendency to organize themselves into what’s called the “critical state,” in which they are poised on what Buchanan describes as the “knife-edge of instability.” The more places scientists have looked for the critical state, the more places they’ve found it, and some believe that the pervasiveness of instability must now be seen as a fundamental feature of our world.
Ubiquity is packed with stories of real-life catastrophes, such as the huge earthquake that in 1995 hit Kobe, Japan, killing 5,000 people; the forest fires that ravaged Yellowstone National Park in 1988; the stock market crash of 1987; the mass extinction that killed off the dinosaurs; and the outbreak of World War I. Combining literary flair with scientific rigor, Buchanan introduces the researchers who have pieced together the evidence of the critical state, explaining their ingenious work and unexpected insights in beautifully lucid prose.
At the dawn of this new century, Buchanan reveals, we are witnessing the emergence of an extraordinarily powerful new field of science that will help us comprehend the bewildering and unruly rhythms that dominate our lives and may even lead to a true science of the dynamics of human culture and history.
Customer Reviews:
Pareto is ubiquitous.......2002-12-02
In the book Ubiquity by Mark Buchanan, processes as diverse as forest fire size, stacking rice grains, market fluctuation, scientific paper citations, species extinction history, epidemiology, sizes of wars and earthquake severity are said to generate occasional catastrophic behavior following similar statistical behavior. Buchanan presents these arguments in a very readable style at a level that can be grasped by the layman. I found the physical descriptions of the processes fascinating. The phenomena is, indeed, ubiquitous. Repeatedly, we find that, if X measures severity and f is the frequency histogram of occurrence, then numerous processes containing a catastrophic component adhere to a linear log-log plot with negative slope. Although unsaid in the book, probably to allow access to a wider audience, the underlying probability density function of the ubiquitous process is a Pareto random variable with probability density function f(x)=(a/b)*(b/x)^(a+1) for x>b and zero otherwise. The enormously fat tails of this distribution allow the outlier-like catastrophic events described in the book. Taking the log of both sides of the density function gives log[f(x)] = -(a+1)*log(x) + constant which is a line of negative slope on a log-log plot. If U is a uniform random variable on (0,1), then X=b*U^(-1/a) is a Pareto RV. Using this, plots similar to the time series and log-log plots in Ubiquity can be straightforwardly simulated. Googling "Pareto distribution" gives a plurality of interesting web accounts, many mathematically deeper, of this remarkable phenomena made wonderfully accessible by Buchanan.
A new kind of hype?.......2002-08-24
There is no physical theory that explains history, economics, etc. The wary reader should beware that wishful thinking has won over scientific criticism in this book. To be more specific, sandpile models do not explain earthquakes, turbulence, economics, and so on. Sandpile models are an interesting way of trying something new and stimulating in statistical physics but certainly cannot be elevated to the level of explaining the world. Fluid turbulence is not like dynamically an earthquake, financial markets are not like sandpiles, and Hitler is not explained by any model of statistical physics (need one really say this!?). The historians and biologists need not pack their bags and go home...
(A physics professor)
Can my small comments make a change?.......2002-08-20
This is not one of my favourite reads. In some ways I found it a labour as it went over the same material again and again, albeit in very diverse areas. I understand the power law that Mr Buchanan describes and its implications, but it seems to be such an after-the-event view that can have little material impact on modern endeavours. It proves futility. It is as if what is ubiquitous is our necessary failure to achieve. But I'm sure we do do better than that.
On the other hand there was one revelation in this book that truly fascinated me. I have always been interested in the dinosaurs and their extinction. Books like 'The Dinosaur Heresies' by Bakker and 'Hot-Blooded Dinosaurs' by Desmond developed a genuine need-to-know-more. But the matter of extinction is so challenging. There are strong suggestions that an impact of an asteroid caused such havoc that the dinosaurs became extinct - all of them, the small ones, the large ones, the carnivores, the herbivores, the pterosaurs (flying dinosaurs) and the plesiosaurs (sea-going dinosaurs). And yet, for all that, other animals - notably mammals - did survive. What allowed them through the window of extinction? In my reading I have encountered this debate many times and most writers do have a preference for one theory or another. But even those who do support the impact theory do not have evidence of an impact associated with each of the great periods of extinction that have occured through time. So, the thesis of 'Ubiquity' does provide an alternative - that sometimes the effect of even a small change will cause monumental alterations to the world according to the ubiquitous power law. What was the small change that extinguished the dinosaur SPECIES but allowed others to survive, and in the absence of the dinosurs, thrive? It seems to me that knowing what this small change was would fundamentally advance our knowledge of what the dinosaurs really were.
The most powerful voice in the campaign for popularising the impact theory of dinosaur extinction is Alvarez who discovered the site of the impact that occured 65 million years ago just about the time the last dinosaur walked on the Earth. What Buchanan points out, that so few other writers do is this ....
'...the bulk of the long 1980 paper by Alvarez and his colleagues was 'confined to the geological and physical evidence for an impact, and the physical results of the impact. The discussion of the biological results of the impact occupies only half a page. (quoted from M. Benton) The reason is simple: no one really has much of a clue about what an impact would really do to life all over the planet.'
This is perhaps the strongest argument I have read against the impact causing the extinction of the dinsoaurs. Not that it couldn't have, but that the opinionated science community is so set on Alvarez' findings that they have taken the most tenuous suggestions from Alvarez' paper to support their theories.
Certainly plausible and explains a lot.......2002-08-20
Buchanan's book Ubiquity is a fascinating volume on self organizing criticality. It bears a striking resemblance to Per Bak's book How Nature Works, and Bak's research is cited a number of times throughout the text. As with the Bak work, Buchanan's covers a wide variety of subjects from wars to stock market fluctuations. Of particular interest to me was the discussion of evolution and the episodic character of mass extinctions, since I've read a number of books on the subject of the K-T boundary extinction.
Like Bak, Buchanan points out that much that appears to have historical significance and specific causation, while it makes for good story telling, has little predictive value about it. He uses Bak's sandpile experiments to illustrate the futility of such efforts by creating a "Sandman's view" of catastrophe (pp. 179-180). He imagines a catastrophic sand slide from the point of view of a tiny survivor to whom events seem to have been "due" to negligence on the part of the individuals responsible for a steep area. From the point of view of the sandpile, though, the information required for such control would have to be staggeringly large and nearly perfect in order to have predicted the slide and its effects. Had some minute change to the pile been possible at the putative disaster site, a similar slide could have occurred elsewhere. Then the caretakers of the sandpile would have been blamed for causing a disaster rather than preventing one. One can see in this parable why politicians in the real world tend to seek their own ultimate good rather than that of their constituents or of the environment itself. The vagaries of prediction caused by the intertwining of particulars and the vastness of the data involved put such individuals in impossible positions. They are either guilty of not preventing or of causing various negative outcomes if they are unfortunate or praised for positive outcomes if fortunate. As the author points out in a quote of John Galbraith, "Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable (p. 1)."
The key point of the book seems to be that many systems are organized on the critical edge between instability and stability. Life itself may owe its very existence to that fact. Because of this poised-on-the-edge characteristic, small events may cascade in such a way as to produce major changes: a new value for stocks, a massive extinction that creates new opportunities for remaining species, a redistribution of power among nations, etc. Which outcomes occur and when, however, are not subject to predictive formulae, even though they may seem ideally suited to it. If even extreme events are the results of myriads of small, seemingly unimportant events-sort of the butterfly in Japan fluttering its wings concept-then there are no means by which catastrophic events can be predicted any more than smaller ones can be. According to the author, while there seems to be a mathematical frequency with which incidents of different magnitudes occur, there is no way of divining when a specific outcome of a given magnitude will actually occur, nor are the consequences should such an event be forestalled. This has implications for events meaningful to human beings: wars, the stock market peaks and valleys, even extinction events. For Buchanan, history itself may arise by virtue of natural resolutions of unstable systems of whatever kind.
After reading the author's discussion of the Gutenberg-Richter power law and the scale invariance of some systems, it occurred to me that the end of the world scenario presented by Carl Sagan in his book Cosmos-and credited to an earlier researcher-may fall into this category. In that volume, a chart had been created that plotted murder (private war) to the total destruction of mankind against a time line, finding that total annihilation should occur a few years after the year 2000. (It was expected closer to mid 21st century, but the original author had not factored in the destructive power of nuclear war. Later individuals did and produced a chart that suggested armageddon would be around 2010). While the ultimate war may well occur, if Bak and Buchanan are correct, it might not be due to either predictable or controllable factors, and it will probably not occur on any clear cut timetable like that suggested in Cosmos.
An amazingly interesting book full of concepts that, however theoretical, are certainly plausible and explain a lot about our world.
Games Physicists Play.......2002-06-18
It is a matter of degree. If I, with my degrees in Chinese Lit, were to hurl a hundred frozen potatoes at a wall, I would probably end up in a stait-jacket. If someone with degrees in Physics does that, it's research.
Mark Buchanan, however, does away with degrees. As the title of this book implies, all or nothing: Ubiquity is a sole authority. Only my knife cuts potatoes, no knife but mine can cut potatoes. While I agree that the existence of power laws is fascinating, I would not perhaps extend them as far as Buchanan does; I would be more interested in probing why distribution is so regular, rather than insisting that all phenomena must be explained by this, and only this, rule. A power law may signify that a country can be bled, or a forest burned, so far before you run out of fuel. This is more interesting than assuming that because the numbers resemble each other, the conditions necessarily illuminate each other. (As to the power law, please note the comments in Dennis Littrell's review of this book).
I got to the point where I dreaded having to read about yet another game that, amazingly enough, proves the power law (do any games disprove it?). Games seem to go to Buchanan's head, where they practically replace reality, which, needless to say, is far more complex. There are games and there are games, though. On page 126 (paperback version), Newton is praised for simplifying for ease of reasoning; then on page 142, economists are excoriated for simplifying for ease of reasoning. I never thought I would see the day that I stood up for economics, but isn't this a double standard? By the same token, after he so thoroughly debunked the efficient market hypothesis, I was surprised to read on page 188 that after war releases stress, 'each nation is brought back into rough balance with its true economic strength.' But as he says on the next page, 'None of this is meant to be fully convincing.' It's not.
Buchanan at times seems to forget that there is more to human history than wars and revolution, and that great people can change the course of history; where would we be today if George Washington Carver had not saved southern agriculture? Buchanan's total belief in the ubiquity of his games leads him to say something as ridiculous as "the mark of the great scientist lies not so much in having profound ideas that revolutionize science, but in taking ideas ... and making that potential real"(p183). ...limits our reviews to 1,000 words, so I will leave it this sentence for you to explode .
Even if we discount the role anybody but scientists and soldiers play in history, there should be some difference between incipient wars. Consider World War II, in which Germany and Japan geared for widespread conquest, planning meticulously years in advance. The German army would not have rolled through the center of Europe so irresistibly if the Hitler Youth had not trained the young so well; Japanese school children were primed to attack China before the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. Then compare this to the American Revolution, a beef far across the oceans between some (not all) ill-prepared colonists and a Great Britain preoccupied with India. Is it any surprise that WWII spread far and wide, while the American Revolution was fought locally?
I think the author has intriguing ideas, but he has overextended them. Nonetheless, Buchanan's doctrines have a familiar ring. Buddhism long has taught that any event is the result of an infinite number of causes, and the cause of an infinite number of results. The ideas in this book are well worth pondering, but with a grain of salt. One grain. Now, if you have a whole pile of grains of salt, one more might avalanche....
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The Ubiquity of Chaos
Manufacturer: Amer Assn for the Advancement of
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Chaos & Systems
| Physics
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General
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ASIN: 0871683504 |
Book Description
Word count: 791.
Book Description
Word count: 494.
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Nanostructures - Fabrication and Analysis (NanoScience and Technology)
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General & Reference
| Chemistry
| Science
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General
| Science
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| Physics
| Science
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Nanotechnology
| Technology
| Science
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General
| Electrical & Electronics
| Engineering
| Professional & Technical
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General
| Electronics
| Electrical & Electronics
| Engineering
| Professional & Technical
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General
| Engineering
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General
| Industrial, Manufacturing & Operational Systems
| Engineering
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General & Reference
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ASIN: 3540375775 |
Product Description
The main theme of this book is the exploration the underlying physical laws that permit the fabrication of nanometer-scale structures. As researchers attempt to fabricate nanometer-scale structures which do not exist per se, they must still employ the natural laws to fabricate them through processes such as self-assembly. So it turns out that our techniques for fabrication of nanometer-scale structures are not artificial but actually rely on the natural laws. We even find that nanometer-scale structures, e.g. fullerenes, are fabricated in nature beneath the surface of the Earth. This fact may be called the ubiquity of the nanometer-scale structures. The topics presented in the book include: scanning probe-related and near-field techniques, nanolithography, self assembling and design of novel nanostructures, as well as new nanodevices and their application.
Product Description
Mark Buchanan's writing always leaves you moved, stimulated, and convicted. You will find yourself mulling it over days later and wishing for more. Most of us feel utterly ransacked: We're waylaid by endless demands and stifling routines. Even our vacations have a panicky, task-like edge to them. "If I only had more time," is the mantra of our age. But is this the real problem? Widle acclaimed author Mark Buchanan states that what we've really lost is "the rest of God-the rest God bestows and, with it, that part of himself we can know only through stillness." Stillness as a virtue is a foreign concept in our society, but there is wisdom in God's own rythm of work and rest. Sabbath is elixir and antidote. It is a gift for our sanity and wholeness-to prolong our lives, to enrich our relationships, to increase our fruitfulness, to make our joy complete. The gift of Sabbath is essential to our full humanity and faith, says Buchanan. here he helps us seek and receive anew the gift of Sabbath, this day of rest and play and replenishment. Far from being some starched and dour day only to be endured, Sabath is a day wide and bright brimming with laughter, enough to lend beauty to all our other days. Readers will be changed forever by this pivotal book.
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Theodore Fink: A Talent for Ubiquity
Don Garden
Manufacturer: Melbourne University Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
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Rich & Famous
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ASIN: 0522848281 |
Book Description
Theodore Fink was an energetic and controversial public figure in Melbourne from the 1870s to the1940s.
Born into a struggling Jewish family, Fink was a solicitor by profession: and a bon vivant and patron of the arts by inclination. He divided his energies between the law, business, newspapers and education. He did not achieve high office, but the reach of his activity and engagement was extraordinary. Thus Don Garden concludes that Fink's chief talent was for ubiquity.
He was a liberal humanist one minute and a scheming opportunist the next. In this engaging biography, Don Garden skilfully maps the many contradictions of an intriguingly complex life.
Books:
- Use What You Have Decorating : Transform Your Home in One Hour With Ten Simple Design Principles Using the Space You Have, the Things You Like, the Budget You Choose
- Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West
- Were It Not For Grace: Stories From Women After God's Own Heart; Featuring Condoleezza Rice, First Lady Laura Bush, Beth Moore & Others
- Where Did I Come From?
- Adaptive Filter Theory (4th Edition)
- An Introduction to Genetic Analysis (INTRODUCTION TO GENETIC ANALYSIS (GRIFFITHS))
- Analysis: With an Introduction to Proof (4th Edition)
- Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior
- Applications = Code + Markup: A Guide to the Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation (Pro - Developer)
- Are Men Necessary?: When Sexes Collide
Books Index
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Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Theory of Networks
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