The amazingly comforting near-death stories in this book will help to give a joyful meaning and direction to the individual and collective lives of all human beings.--John Lerma, RHP, M.D., author of "Into the Light" and "Learning from the Light.
The Hill Times: Best Books of 2016 An overview of the history of elections and voting in Canada, including minority governments, dynasties, and social movements. Dynasties and Interludes provides a comprehensive and unique overview of elections and voting in Canada from Confederation to the most recent election. Its principal argument is that the Canadian political landscape has consisted of long periods of hegemony of a single party and/or leader (dynasties), punctuated by short, sharp disruptions brought about by the sudden rise of new parties, leaders, or social movements (interludes). This revised and updated second edition includes an analysis of the results of the 2011 and 2015 federal elections as well as an in-depth discussion of the “Harper Dynasty.”
Eighteen classic sea-faring tales by the best-loved writers of the genre, including Patrick O'Brian, C. S. Forester, Richard Woodman, Herman Melville and Frederick Marryat. Featuring favourite heroes such as Captain Jack Aubrey, Adam Hardy, Horatio Hornblower and Nathaniel Drinkwater. These tales vividly re-create the age of the glory days of sail, aboard the great ships that sailed for trade, discovery or warfare. They include storms and shipwrecks, the great sea battles of the Napoleonic era and the sheer, dangerous excitement of life before the mast.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • The Washington Post • Entertainment Weekly • The Seattle Times • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • Bloomberg Businessweek In this magnificent biography, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Lion and Franklin and Winston brings vividly to life an extraordinary man and his remarkable times. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power gives us Jefferson the politician and president, a great and complex human being forever engaged in the wars of his era. Philosophers think; politicians maneuver. Jefferson’s genius was that he was both and could do both, often simultaneously. Such is the art of power. Thomas Jefferson hated confrontation, and yet his understanding of power and of human nature enabled him to move men and to marshal ideas, to learn from his mistakes, and to prevail. Passionate about many things—women, his family, books, science, architecture, gardens, friends, Monticello, and Paris—Jefferson loved America most, and he strove over and over again, despite fierce opposition, to realize his vision: the creation, survival, and success of popular government in America. Jon Meacham lets us see Jefferson’s world as Jefferson himself saw it, and to appreciate how Jefferson found the means to endure and win in the face of rife partisan division, economic uncertainty, and external threat. Drawing on archives in the United States, England, and France, as well as unpublished Jefferson presidential papers, Meacham presents Jefferson as the most successful political leader of the early republic, and perhaps in all of American history. The father of the ideal of individual liberty, of the Louisiana Purchase, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and of the settling of the West, Jefferson recognized that the genius of humanity—and the genius of the new nation—lay in the possibility of progress, of discovering the undiscovered and seeking the unknown. From the writing of the Declaration of Independence to elegant dinners in Paris and in the President’s House; from political maneuverings in the boardinghouses and legislative halls of Philadelphia and New York to the infant capital on the Potomac; from his complicated life at Monticello, his breathtaking house and plantation in Virginia, to the creation of the University of Virginia, Jefferson was central to the age. Here too is the personal Jefferson, a man of appetite, sensuality, and passion. The Jefferson story resonates today not least because he led his nation through ferocious partisanship and cultural warfare amid economic change and external threats, and also because he embodies an eternal drama, the struggle of the leadership of a nation to achieve greatness in a difficult and confounding world. Praise for Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power “This is probably the best single-volume biography of Jefferson ever written.”—Gordon S. Wood “A big, grand, absorbing exploration of not just Jefferson and his role in history but also Jefferson the man, humanized as never before.”—Entertainment Weekly “[Meacham] captures who Jefferson was, not just as a statesman but as a man. . . . By the end of the book . . . the reader is likely to feel as if he is losing a dear friend. . . . [An] absorbing tale.”—The Christian Science Monitor “This terrific book allows us to see the political genius of Thomas Jefferson better than we have ever seen it before. In these endlessly fascinating pages, Jefferson emerges with such vitality that it seems as if he might still be alive today.”—Doris Kearns Goodwin
Financial Risk Forecasting is a complete introduction to practical quantitative risk management, with a focus on market risk. Derived from the authors teaching notes and years spent training practitioners in risk management techniques, it brings together the three key disciplines of finance, statistics and modeling (programming), to provide a thorough grounding in risk management techniques. Written by renowned risk expert Jon Danielsson, the book begins with an introduction to financial markets and market prices, volatility clusters, fat tails and nonlinear dependence. It then goes on to present volatility forecasting with both univatiate and multivatiate methods, discussing the various methods used by industry, with a special focus on the GARCH family of models. The evaluation of the quality of forecasts is discussed in detail. Next, the main concepts in risk and models to forecast risk are discussed, especially volatility, value-at-risk and expected shortfall. The focus is both on risk in basic assets such as stocks and foreign exchange, but also calculations of risk in bonds and options, with analytical methods such as delta-normal VaR and duration-normal VaR and Monte Carlo simulation. The book then moves on to the evaluation of risk models with methods like backtesting, followed by a discussion on stress testing. The book concludes by focussing on the forecasting of risk in very large and uncommon events with extreme value theory and considering the underlying assumptions behind almost every risk model in practical use – that risk is exogenous – and what happens when those assumptions are violated. Every method presented brings together theoretical discussion and derivation of key equations and a discussion of issues in practical implementation. Each method is implemented in both MATLAB and R, two of the most commonly used mathematical programming languages for risk forecasting with which the reader can implement the models illustrated in the book. The book includes four appendices. The first introduces basic concepts in statistics and financial time series referred to throughout the book. The second and third introduce R and MATLAB, providing a discussion of the basic implementation of the software packages. And the final looks at the concept of maximum likelihood, especially issues in implementation and testing. The book is accompanied by a website - www.financialriskforecasting.com – which features downloadable code as used in the book.
To pun, Pierre brings globalization down to earth. After all the hype, he serves as an experienced and trustworthy guide to the key question of how far nation states are forced to follow global trends. His answers are nuanced, well-evidenced, and thought-provoking. This should find a place on many reading lists. Christopher Pollitt, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium Jon Pierres Globalization and Governance takes on perhaps the most significant question in international political economy: to what extent have nations governance structures been determined and shaped by the recent great forces of globalization? In an ingenious analytical tour de force, he looks at how three very different democracies, Japan, Sweden, and the U.S., have dealt with the economy, intergovernmental relationships, and administrative reform when confronted by globalization trends. His conclusion is a masterful, elegant and convincing argument that boils down to somewhat, but not as much as you (or many other theorists) might think. This is an important, sophisticated and ground-breaking book about the interstices of international and domestic policymaking and political economy that challenges the conventional wisdom. Is there any better kind in the study of governance? Ellis Krauss, University of California, US Globalization and Governance makes a compelling case that domestic political economies can cope creatively, distinctly, and effectively with exogenous pressures for change. However compelling and homogenizing global forces may appear to be, the book shows that Sweden, Japan and the United States continue to demonstrate an overwhelming resilience by entrenched domestic patterns plus powerful learning and adaptive capabilities. This book is a welcome addition to the ongoing debates about globalization; it is full of insights for specialists in both comparative politics and international relations. T.J. Pempel, University of California, Berkeley, US Globalization raises important questions about the governing capacity of domestic institutions. In Globalization and Governance, Jon Pierre studies the impact of international norms and prescriptions on domestic governance in Japan, Sweden and the United States. The empirical analysis is focused on economic governance, administrative reform and intergovernmental relationships. Drawing on survey data, documents and interviews, the analysis finds that domestic institutions still intrinsically shape domestic governance. International norms towards deregulation and market-based administrative reform confront domestic institutions with prescriptions for reform but the three countries provide only very few examples of unmitigated domestic implementation. What Jon Pierre calls the microfoundations of globalizationthe assessment, adoption or rejection of international norms and ideas in vogueis a complex process where domestic institutions and path dependencies remain at the helm. The most important exception to this pattern is governance during financial crises where countries are dependent on conditioned support from transnational institutions. This insightful and informative book will appeal to researchers, academics, post-graduate, as well as undergraduate, students in governance, political economy and international relations.
The European Union (EU) aims to put Europe on track toward a low-carbon economy. In this striking challenge, the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) has been singled out as the Union’s key climate policy instrument, ultimately aimed as a model for a global carbon market. The learning effect of the EU ETS could thus be tremendous. This study explores how the EU ETS actually works on the ground, affecting corporate climate strategies. It covers general sector responses as well as systematic comparative studies of companies across the sectors. The latter enables improved understanding of causal effects and the role of interaction between different policy instruments and other factors that impact corporate climate strategies. The study explores a broad set of mechanisms at play potentially linking the EU ETS to company climate strategies. These include how corporate norms of responsibility are affected by the EU ETS and how economic incentives provide opportunities for innovation. The book’s main contribution lies in its systematic examination of corporate responses to the EU ETS from a broad empirical and analytical social science perspective covering companies in all main EU ETS sectors: electric power, oil, cement, steel and pulp and paper.
An illustrated and informative guide to the WWI battlefields south of Arras, France, including some of the most significant battles of 1917. Some of the most famous and frequently visited battlefields on the Western Front are just to the south of the Arras. These sites include Battery Valley and Observation Ridge, Telegraph Hill, Monchy-le-Preux, Wancourt, and Bullecourt. And this clearly written, highly illustrated guide is the ideal introduction to them. Expert guides Jon Cooksey and Jerry Murland have devised a series of routes that can be walked, biked or driven, explaining the fighting that occurred at each place in vivid detail. They record what happened, where it happened and why, pointing out the sights that remain for the visitor to see. The featured itineraries allow visitors to trace the course of each battle across the modern landscape, gaining visceral insight into the nature of combat throughout the war.
A synthesis of years of interdisciplinary research and practice, the second edition of this bestseller continues to serve as a primary resource for information on the assessment, remediation, and control of contamination on and below the ground surface. Practical Handbook of Soil, Vadose Zone, and Ground-Water Contamination: Assessment, Prev
Features comprehensive updates throughout the text, including indications, techniques, potential complications in perioperative management of patients, and surgical techniques for congenital heart disease. Covers recent advances in the treatment of pulmonary hypertension, developments in mechanical assist devices, heart and lung transplantation, and interventional cardiac catheterization. Features an all-new, full-color format that speeds navigation and helps clarify complex concepts. Contains 27 new chapters with an emphasis on the team approach to patient care in the ICU including creating multidisciplinary teams, quality and performance improvement, training , and challenges and solutions to developing a cohesive team environment. Includes a detailed chapter on bedside ultrasound, walking you through the techniques you’re most likely to encounter in the ICU. Employs well-documented tables, text boxes, and algorithms to make clinical information easy to access, and to provide a more complete understanding of echocardiography, imaging modalities, pulmonary hypertension, and more. Describes the basic pharmacology and clinical applications of new pharmacologic agents. Examines issues affecting adults with congenital heart disease.
“A great reference tool for anyone who wants to explore the history of music.” - Philip Glass Jon Paxman's Classical Music 1600–2000: A Chronology interprets four centuries of Western classical music, considering its evolution from two different perspectives. Monumental in scope but lucid in style, this book will prove invaluable to anyone – student or enthusiast – who wants to comprehend the overwhelmingly rich and sometimes complex evolution of Western classical music. Classical Music 1600–2000: A Chronology features contributions by Terry Barfoot, Katy Hamilton, Thomas Lydon and Robert Rawson.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.