Investigative journalist Michael Gross delves into the history of models and takes us into the private studios and hidden villas where models play and are preyed upon, going beyond modeling’s carefully constructed facade of glamour to expose the scandal and untold truths that permeate the seemingly glamorous business. Here for the first time is the complete story of the international model business—and its evil twin: legalized flesh peddling. It’s a tale of vast sums of money, rape both symbolic and of the flesh, sex and drugs, obsession and tragic death. At its heart is the most unholy combination in commerce: beautiful, young women and rich, lascivious men. Fashion insider Michael Gross has interviewed modeling’s pioneers, survivors, and hangers–on, and he tells the story of the greats: Lisa Fonssagrives; Anita Colby, Candy Jones; Dorian Leigh and her sister Suzy Parker; Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy; Veruschka and Lauren Hutton; and today’s supermodel trinity, Christy, Naomi and Linda.
“Michael Gross’s new book…packs [in] almost as many stories as there are apartments in the building. The Jackie Collins of real estate likes to map expressions of power, money and ego… Even more crammed with billionaires and their exploits than 740 Park” (Penelope Green, The New York Times). With two concierge-staffed lobbies, a walnut-lined library, a lavish screening room, a private sixty-seat restaurant offering residents room service, a health club complete with a seventy-foot swimming pool, penthouses that cost almost $100 million, and a tenant roster that’s a roll call of business page heroes and villains, Fifteen Central Park West is the most outrageously successful, insanely expensive, titanically tycoon-stuffed real estate development of the twenty-first century. In this “stunning” (CNN) and “deliciously detailed” (Booklist, starred review) New York Times bestseller, journalist Michael Gross turns his gimlet eye on the new-money wonderland that’s sprung up on the southwest rim of Central Park. Mixing an absorbing business epic with hilarious social comedy, Gross “takes another gossip-laden bite out of the upper crust” (Sam Roberts, The New York Times), whichincludes Denzel Washington, Sting, Norman Lear, top executives, and Russian and Chinese oligarchs, to name a few. And he recounts the legendary building’s inspired genesis, costly construction, and the flashy international lifestyle it has brought to a once benighted and socially déclassé Manhattan neighborhood. More than just an apartment building, 15CPW represents a massive paradigm shift in the lifestyle of New York’s rich and famous—and is a bellwether of the city’s changing social and financial landscape.
Can life exist in the Antarctic ice, in the deep subsurface, in dilute sulfuric acid, in hot springs-even on Mars? What degree of high or low temperature, pressure, or salt concentration can living cells tolerate? In recent years, scientists have discovered many single-cell creatures that exist in-in fact, are perfectly adapted to-extreme environments that were considered uninhabitable just one or two decades ago. In Life on the Edge, author Michael Gross explores how microorganisms adapt to their hostile environments and how they affect our current definition of the "normal" conditions for life. He also describes the vast implications of these extremophiles and other amazing creatures-from potential breakthroughs in medicine and biotechnology to the search for life elsewhere in the universe.
Fifteen families.Four hundred years. The complex saga of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant elite in America’s history. For decades, writers from Cleveland Amory to Joseph Alsop to the editors of Politico have proclaimed the diminishment of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, who for generations were the dominant socio-cultural-political force in America. While the WASP elite has, in the last half century, indeed drifted from American centrality to the periphery, its relevance and impact remain, as Michael Gross reveals in his compelling chronicle. From Colonial America’s founding settlements through the Gilded Age to the present day, Gross traces the complex legacy of American WASPs—their profound accomplishments and egregious failures—through the lives of fifteen influential individuals and their very privileged, sometimes intermarried families. As the Bradford, Randolph, Morris, Biddle, Sanford, Peabody and Whitney clans progress, prosper and periodically stumble, defining aspects in the four-century sweep of American history emerge: our wide, oft-contentious religious diversity; the deep scars of slavery, genocide, and intolerance; the creation and sometime mis-use of astonishing economic and political power; an enduring belief in the future; an instinct to offset inequity with philanthropy; an equal capacity for irresponsible, sometimes wanton, behavior. “American society was supposed to be different,” writes Gross, “but for most of our history we have had a patriciate, an aristocracy, a hereditary oligarchic upper class, who initiated the American national experiment.” In previous acclaimed books such as 740 Park and Rogues’ Gallery, Gross has explored elite culture in microcosm; expanding the canvas, Flight of the WASP chronicles it across four centuries and fifteen generations in an ambitious and consequential contribution to American history.
“Behind almost every painting is a fortune and behind that a sin or a crime.” With these words as a starting point, Michael Gross, leading chronicler of the American rich, begins the first independent, unauthorized look at the saga of the nation’s greatest museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In this endlessly entertaining follow-up to his bestselling social history 740 Park, Gross pulls back the shades of secrecy that have long shrouded the upper class’s cultural and philanthropic ambitions and maneuvers. And he paints a revealing portrait of a previously hidden face of American wealth and power. The Metropolitan, Gross writes, “is a huge alchemical experiment, turning the worst of man’s attributes—extravagance, lust, gluttony, acquisitiveness, envy, avarice, greed, egotism, and pride—into the very best, transmuting deadly sins into priceless treasure.” The book covers the entire 138-year history of the Met, focusing on the museum’s most colorful characters. Opening with the lame-duck director Philippe de Montebello, the museum’s longest-serving leader who finally stepped down in 2008, Rogues’ Gallery then goes back to the very beginning, highlighting, among many others: the first director, Luigi Palma di Cesnola, an Italian-born epic phony, whose legacy is a trove of plundered ancient relics, some of which remain on display today; John Pierpont Morgan, the greatest capitalist and art collector of his day, who turned the museum from the plaything of a handful of rich amateurs into a professional operation dedicated, sort of, to the public good; John D. Rockefeller Jr., who never served the Met in any official capacity but who, during the Great Depression, proved the only man willing and rich enough to be its benefactor, which made him its behind-the-scenes puppeteer; the controversial Thomas Hoving, whose tenure as director during the sixties and seventies revolutionized museums around the world but left the Met in chaos; and Jane Engelhard and Annette de la Renta, a mother-daughter trustee tag team whose stories will astonish you (think Casablanca rewritten by Edith Wharton). With a supporting cast that includes artists, forgers, and looters, financial geniuses and scoundrels, museum officers (like its chairman Arthur Amory Houghton, head of Corning Glass, who once ripped apart a priceless and ancient Islamic book in order to sell it off piecemeal), trustees (like Jayne Wrightsman, the Hollywood party girl turned society grand dame), curators (like the aging Dietrich von Bothmer, a refugee from Nazi Germany with a Bronze Star for heroism whose greatest acquisitions turned out to be looted), and donors (like Irwin Untermyer, whose collecting obsession drove his wife and children to suicide), and with cameo appearances by everyone from Vogue editors Anna Wintour and Diana Vreeland to Sex Pistols front man Johnny Rotten, Rogues’ Gallery is a rich, satisfying, alternately hilarious and horrifying look at America’s upper class, and what is perhaps its greatest creation.
For seventy-five years, it’s been Manhattan’s richest apartment building, and one of the most lusted-after addresses in the world. One apartment had 37 rooms, 14 bathrooms, 43 closets, 11 working fireplaces, a private elevator, and his-and-hers saunas; another at one time had a live-in service staff of 16. To this day, it is steeped in the purest luxury, the kind most of us could only imagine, until now. The last great building to go up along New York’s Gold Coast, construction on 740 Park finished in 1930. Since then, 740 has been home to an ever-evolving cadre of our wealthiest and most powerful families, some of America’s (and the world’s) oldest money—the kind attached to names like Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Bouvier, Chrysler, Niarchos, Houghton, and Harkness—and some whose names evoke the excesses of today’s monied elite: Kravis, Koch, Bronfman, Perelman, Steinberg, and Schwarzman. All along, the building has housed titans of industry, political power brokers, international royalty, fabulous scam-artists, and even the lowest scoundrels. The book begins with the tumultuous story of the building’s construction. Conceived in the bubbling financial, artistic, and social cauldron of 1920’s Manhattan, 740 Park rose to its dizzying heights as the stock market plunged in 1929—the building was in dire financial straits before the first apartments were sold. The builders include the architectural genius Rosario Candela, the scheming businessman James T. Lee (Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s grandfather), and a raft of financiers, many of whom were little more than white-collar crooks and grand-scale hustlers. Once finished, 740 became a magnet for the richest, oldest families in the country: the Brewsters, descendents of the leader of the Plymouth Colony; the socially-registered Bordens, Hoppins, Scovilles, Thornes, and Schermerhorns; and top executives of the Chase Bank, American Express, and U.S. Rubber. Outside the walls of 740 Park, these were the people shaping America culturally and economically. Within those walls, they were indulging in all of the Seven Deadly Sins. As the social climate evolved throughout the last century, so did 740 Park: after World War II, the building’s rulers eased their more restrictive policies and began allowing Jews (though not to this day African Americans) to reside within their hallowed walls. Nowadays, it is full to bursting with new money, people whose fortunes, though freshly-made, are large enough to buy their way in. At its core this book is a social history of the American rich, and how the locus of power and influence has shifted haltingly from old bloodlines to new money. But it’s also much more than that: filled with meaty, startling, often tragic stories of the people who lived behind 740’s walls, the book gives us an unprecedented access to worlds of wealth, privilege, and extraordinary folly that are usually hidden behind a scrim of money and influence. This is, truly, how the other half—or at least the other one hundredth of one percent—lives.
There would be no life on Earth without light from the Sun, and life would not be as highly evolved as it is had it not made the best use of light's energy and information for using photosynthesis, biological clocks, and vision. In Light and Life, Michael Gross explores six major aspects of the complex and fascinating interplay between light and life, ranging from the mythical role of the Sun in ancient cultures to the latest advances in scientific research, covering photosynthesis, bioluminescence, vision, perception, and biological clocks. - ;Light, like no other physical phenomenon, is linked in a wide variety of ways with the biological phenomenon of life. We can read this page because light is reflected from it, and carries the information to the retina; the oxygen we breathe was produced by photosynthesis; our sense of alertness relies on our biological clock, set using the cues of light and dark. Michael Gross explores the symbiotic relationship of light and life in this intriguing and entertaining book. Starting with astronomy and our relationship with the Sun and dependence on photosynthesis, he then turns to some of the stranger outcomes of the relationship - bioluminescent creatures, and their evolutionary significance. Finally he looks at the influence of light on biological time-keeping, the focus of much current scientific research. Life would not be here without light, and it would not have evolved as it has done had it not made the best possible use of light's energy and information content for using photosynthesis, biological clocks, and vision. This book explores all these aspects of the fascinating interplay of these two phenomena in a lively manner using many intriguing examples. -
Why are we so obsessed with fame? In Starstruck, former autograph hound and current entertainment journalist Michael Joseph Gross searches for the answer as he travels from Hollywood to Dollywood, Neverland to Middle Earth. He chases after Mick Jagger with a professional autograph collector; gets the inside scoop from Mary Hart on covering Hollywood for Entertainment Tonight; walks the red carpet with Sean Astin during The Lord of the Rings's Oscar championship season; and discovers what fans look like to the celebrities themselves-who often seem to be among the most starstruck of us all. "Absorbing."-Michael Musto, Village Voice "Jaw-dropping."-The Advocate "Starstruck is a wonderful blend of insight, personal history, sociology, and hilarious gossip...I can't wait for people to start asking Gross for his autograph."-Glen David Gold, author of Carter Beats the Devil "Gross works the fame-shame equation with a piercingly funny perceptiveness."-East Bay Express "Like an anthropologist trained in Hollywood culture, [Gross] understands the positive and negative results of adulation...Gross's writing is honest and humane, and his book is an entertaining look at modern celebrity culture."-Publishers Weekly "It's hard to imagine a more important, underestimated, and vexing subject for America today than celebrity, and Michael Gross's treatment of the subject is everything one would hope it could be: thoughtful, generous, rigorous, and suspicious of cant."-Jim Shepard, author of Project X Also available: Starstruck hc 1-58234-316-0 ISBN-13 978-1-58234-316-7 $23.95
Professional and aspiring writers, including those who wish to self-publish, will find indispensable tools in this practical, complete, and time-saving popular resource. Business and Legal Forms for Authors and Self-Publishers contains all of the essential forms for success, including assignment confirmations, contracts between author and agent, publisher, collaborator, designer, printer, sales representative, book distributor, and more, copyright applications and transfers, licenses of rights (including electronic rights), permissions, nondisclosure, and invoices. The collection includes a CD-ROM with all the forms as well as a QR Code. In addition to updating the entire book, this fourth edition includes new material covering: Digital Millenial Copyright Act (DMCA) take down notices Dunning letters to go after royalties or fees owed Small claims court, arbitration, and mediation Statutory right of termination notice Self-publishing contracts, including what to avoid for both physical books and e-books Step-by-step instructions, advice on standard contractual provisions, and unique negotiation checklists are presented to aid in achieving the best results. Thorough discussions of contractual issues relevant to the industry make this a must-read for any author or self-publisher seeking the path to success. Allworth Press, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, publishes a broad range of books on the visual and performing arts, with emphasis on the business of art. Our titles cover subjects such as graphic design, theater, branding, fine art, photography, interior design, writing, acting, film, how to start careers, business and legal forms, business practices, and more. While we don't aspire to publish a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are deeply committed to quality books that help creative professionals succeed and thrive. We often publish in areas overlooked by other publishers and welcome the author whose expertise can help our audience of readers.
A history of lucrative real estate in Los Angeles shares the lesser-known contributions of a range of figures from Douglas Fairbanks and Marilyn Monroe to Howard Hughes and Ronald Reagan. By the best-selling author of Rogues' Gallery.
Michael Gross has been writing about science full time for the last eight years and as a night time hobby for the previous seven. From his treasure troves, he now presents his favourite science stories from these 15 years. What are the attractions that make him revisit a topic or reread an article again and again? Often, it's the sheer craziness of wildly unexpected findings or grotesquely oversized challenges. In other stories, there is a sexy element or an unexpected insight into the human condition. And sometimes, when reporting new and future technologies, the author just can't help thinking: >cooooooool!
Our lives are about to be changed by new technologies that operate on a scale too small to be seen by even the most powerful optical microscopes. Devices measured in nanometers-billionths of a meter-have set off a nanotechnology revolution. In Travels to the Nanoworld, Michael Gross takes us deep into this miniature universe and describes natural processes and new technologies that will make modern machines look like relics from the Stone Age. Starting with the model of the living cell, whose vital processes are directed and carried out by structures with dimensions on the nanometer scale, Gross shows how biochemists are beginning to understand the mechanisms of the "nanotechnology of nature." Soon science will have the knowledge and technology to generate artificial systems that will perform similar tasks, and through them will find new treatments for disease, substitutes for toxic waste, and alternatives to carbon fuel.
Is medical ethics in times of armed conflict identical to medical ethics in times of peace, as the World Medical Association declares? In Bioethics and Armed Conflict, the first comprehensive study of medical ethics in conventional, unconventional, and low-intensity war, Michael Gross examines the dilemmas that arise when bioethical principles clash with military necessity—when physicians try to save lives during an endeavor dedicated to taking them—and describes both the conflicts and congruencies of military and medical ethics. Gross describes how the principles of contemporary just war, unlike those of medical ethics, often go beyond the welfare of the individual to consider the collective interests of combatants and noncombatants and the general interests of the state. Military necessity plays havoc with such patients' rights as the right to life, the right to medical care, informed consent, confidentiality, and the right to die. The principles of triage in battle conditions dictate not need-based treatment but the distribution of resources that will return the greatest number of soldiers to active duty. And unconventional warfare, including current "wars" on terrorism, challenges the traditional concept of medical neutrality as physicians who have sworn to "do no harm" are called upon to lend their expertise to "interrogational" torture or to the development of biological or chemical weapons. Difficult dilemmas inevitably arise during armed conflict, and medicine, Gross concludes, is not above the fray. Medical ethics in time of war cannot be identical to medical ethics in peacetime.
The goal of military medicine is to conserve the fighting force necessary to prosecute just wars. Just wars are defensive or humanitarian. A defensive war protects one's people or nation. A humanitarian war rescues a foreign, persecuted people or nation from grave human rights abuse. To provide medical care during armed conflict, military medical ethics supplements civilian medical ethics with two principles: military-medical necessity and broad beneficence. Military-medical necessity designates the medical means required to pursue national self-defense or humanitarian intervention. While clinical-medical necessity directs care to satisfy urgent medical needs, military-medical necessity utilizes medical care to satisfy the just aims of war. Military medicine may therefore attend the lightly wounded before the critically wounded or use medical care to win hearts and minds. The underlying principle is broad, not narrow, beneficence. The latter addresses private interests, while broad beneficence responds to the collective welfare of the political community"--
Fashion photographers sold not only clothes but ideals of beauty and visions of perfect lives. Gross provides a rollicking account of fashion photography's golden age-- the wild genius, ego, passion, and antics of the men (and a few women) behind the camera, from the postwar covers of Vogue to the triumph of the digital image. He takes you behind the scene of revolutionary creative processes-- and the private passions-- of these visionary magicians.
As insurgencies rage, a burning question remains: how should insurgents fight technologically superior state armies? Commentators rarely ask this question because the catchphrase 'we fight by the rules, but they don't' is nearly axiomatic. But truly, are all forms of guerrilla warfare equally reprehensible? Can we think cogently about just guerrilla warfare? May guerrilla tactics such as laying improvised explosive devices (IEDs), assassinating informers, using human shields, seizing prisoners of war, conducting cyber strikes against civilians, manipulating the media, looting resources, or using nonviolence to provoke violence prove acceptable under the changing norms of contemporary warfare? The short answer is 'yes', but modern guerrilla warfare requires a great deal of qualification, explanation, and argumentation before it joins the repertoire of acceptable military behavior. Not all insurgents fight justly, but guerrilla tactics and strategies are also not always the heinous practices that state powers often portray them to be.
The book is helpful in 2 ways. A. The believer can and will grow spiritually by taking on the sessions, 1 at a time, to learn what it means to follow Jesus. B. It's a guide to help a disciple-maker take a disciple through it step-by-step, so that they fulfill stages of follow-up and beginning discipleship. The result: someone who has been encouraged in nearly every dimension of spiritual growth.
Women most fully experience the consequences of human reproductive technologies. Men who convene to evaluate such technologies discuss Itthem ": the women who must accept, avoid, or even resist these technologies; the women who consume technologies they did not devise; the women who are the objects of policies made by of women is neither sought nor listened to. The men. So often the input and perspectives that women bring to the privileged insights consideration of technologies in human reproduction are the subject of these volumes, which constitute the revised and edited record of a Workshop on "Ethical Issues in Human Reproduction Technology: Analysis by W omen" (EIR TAW), held in June, 1979, at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. Some 80 members of the workshop, 90 percent of them women (from 24 states), represented diverse occupations and personal histories, different races and classes, varied political commitments. They included doctors, nurses, and scientists, lay midwives, consumer advocates, historians, and sociologists, lawyers, policy analysts, and ethicists. Each session, however, made plain that ethics is an everyday concern for women in general, as well as an academic profession for some.
Why music doesn't add up, what The Simpsons can teach us about science, whether Juana la Loca wasn't crazy after all, and what's behind the gaseous veil of Saturn's moon Titan ' these are just some of the questions addressed in the more than 70 reviews and essay reviews from the years 2000 to 2009 collected in this volume. They cover books about science, ranging from the academic to the popularized kind, but there are also books about cultural topics and even a few novels scattered in for good measure. Most of these books reviewed haven't found a massive amount of attention, although some of them should have, at least in the reviewer's opinion. And even if the book under review wasn't all that good, the format of an essay review allows the author to have a go at presenting the subject matter his own way. All in all, a reflection of what happened during the noughties in the worlds of science and culture, and off the beaten track.
There are at least two Ralph Laurens. To the public he's a gentle, modest, yet secure and purposeful man. Inside the walls of Polo Ralph Lauren, though, he's seen by some as a narcissist, an insecure ditherer, and, at times, a rampaging tyrant. Michael Gross, author of the bestseller Model, lays bare the truths of this fashion emperor's rise, and reveals not only the secrets of his stunning success in marketing our shared fantasies but also a darker side that's hidden behind the chic patrician façade.
Informed by new planetary discoveries and the findings from recent robotic missions to Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, scientists are rapidly replacing centuries of speculation about potential extraterrestrial habitats with real knowledge about the possibility of life outside our own biosphere—if it exists, and where. This second edition of Kevin W. Plaxco and Michael Gross’s widely acclaimed text incorporates the latest research in astrobiology to bring readers the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and engaging introduction to the field available. Plaxco and Gross expand their examination of the origin of chemical elements, the developments that made the Universe habitable, and how life continues to be sustained. They discuss in great detail the formation of the first galaxies and stars, the diverse chemistry of the primordial planet, the origins of metabolism, the evolution of complex organisms, and the feedback regulation of Earth's climate. They also explore life in extreme habitats, potential extraterrestrial habitats, and the current status of the search for extraterrestrial life. Weaving together the relevant threads of astronomy, geology, chemistry, biophysics, and microbiology, this broadly accessible introductory text captures the excitement, controversy, and progress of the dynamic young field of astrobiology. New to this edition is a glossary of terms and an epilogue recapping the key unanswered questions, making Astrobiology an ideal primer for students and, indeed, for anyone curious about life and the Universe.
Anatomical Kinesiology provides students with a comprehensive and concise resource for mastering the muscles and related anatomy responsible for body movement. This is a foundational topic needed for application to other important areas including biomechanics, musculoskeletal injuries, rehabilitation, strength and conditioning, and more. The text uses 18 chapters divided across five sections to cover all the material. Section I has four chapters that present the anatomy and physiology concepts most relevant to kinesiology such as body orientation; terminology; and the skeletal, muscular, and nervous organ systems. Section II is divided into three chapters on the bones and their landmarks. The final three sections contain the muscle chapters: One section for the lower extremities, one for the axial skeleton, and one for the upper extremities. The chapters are divided by regions (i.e. ankle, knee, shoulder, etc.). A perforated workbook can be found at the end of the text providing students with review questions and study material that will help readers memorize and understand the function of various bones and muscles of the body.
This is an innovative and important study of the relationship between Catholicism and liberalism, the two most significant and irreconcilable movements in nineteenth-century Germany
In today’s tough economy, cutting prices and providing good service aren’t enough. To be truly successful, innovative businesspeople must learn the art of Positively Outrageous Service (POS)—doing the unexpected unexpectedly and giving the customer more than he or she could hope for. POS put customer service guru T. Scott Gross on the map in the early 1990s. In this revised third edition, he contemporizes his work by examining what’s wrong in the service industry today and how to turn those negatives into POS. In his signature, slightly irreverent, but always insightful style, he shows managers at every level of the service industry how to: Build a customer base by following the four key principles of promotions—have fun, get people to your store, get people involved with your product, and do something good for others Hire the right people and show them the fundamentals of POS Energize and obtain the most creativity out of employees Win over customers when mistakes happen, no matter who is at fault POS is not just a way of doing business, according to Gross; it’s also a state of mind and the key to success in the twenty-first century. T. Scott Gross is a consumer advocate whose client roster for consulting, training, and speaking reads like a who’s who of the Fortune 500. Countless businesses, including Southwest Airlines, FedEx, McDonald’s, Sears, and Wal-Mart, have asked him to motivate the troops at sales meetings and conferences worldwide. Allworth Press, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, publishes a broad range of books on the visual and performing arts, with emphasis on the business of art. Our titles cover subjects such as graphic design, theater, branding, fine art, photography, interior design, writing, acting, film, how to start careers, business and legal forms, business practices, and more. While we don't aspire to publish a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are deeply committed to quality books that help creative professionals succeed and thrive. We often publish in areas overlooked by other publishers and welcome the author whose expertise can help our audience of readers.
Three important amendments to the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA, or Superfund) narrowed the Act's liability to address specific policy objectives. This book is a single-source compendium of this legislation, leading court decisions, and administrative implementation, including the annotated statute, EPA guidance documents, and CD-ROM with the entire legislative history of CERCLA.
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