This book argues that three powerful symbiotic forces (globalization, competitiveness, and governability) are disrupting business in the 21st century, resulting in an impact on the economic and business environment far greater than the effects of any of these three individually. Both globalization and competitiveness are governed essentially by market forces that force the introduction of significant changes aimed at increasing efficiency so that a better use may be made of the advantages of globalization (i.e., the traditional “invisible” hand). Responsibility for bringing about these changes lies not only with the private sector but also with the government (i.e., the “visible” hand). Readers will find in this book an explanation of how globalization, competitiveness, and governability define the context of global business.
Shared value is a management strategy in which companies find business opportunities in social problems. While philanthropy and CSR focus efforts focus on “giving back” or minimizing the harm business has on society, shared value focuses company leaders on maximizing the competitive value of solving social problems in new customers and markets, cost savings, talent retention, and more. This book takes the concept of shared value to the next level, with the concept of “Me to We” (also abbreviated as “M2W”) and discusses the current state of the business-environment-government relationship and shows how the shared value model can contribute to each entity. Citing real cases and examples from multiple industries, the authors show that shared value promotes shareholder interests while serving as a successful business strategy. Chapters explore the emerging phenomenon of shared value, the shareholder-stakeholder comparisons, the role of government in the stakeholder environment, shared value as it related to competitiveness, and operational issues such as implementation, communication, and leadership in their relationship to shared value. Readers will find useful strategies of Me to We and its implementation by firms that have become leaders in their market. They will receive ideas and insights into business strategies that will overshadow CSR activities as a differentiation or brand development strategy of the past. Featuring interviews with corporate executives offering their perspectives on shared value, this book will discuss shared value within the context of business and society, competitiveness, and globalization.
Useful Concepts and Results at the Heart of Linear AlgebraA one- or two-semester course for a wide variety of students at the sophomore/junior undergraduate levelA Modern Introduction to Linear Algebra provides a rigorous yet accessible matrix-oriented introduction to the essential concepts of linear algebra. Concrete, easy-to-understand examples m
This work fills a gap in recent studies on the history of race and science. Focusing on both the classification systems of human variety and the development of science as the arbiter of truth, Brown looks at the rise of the emerging sciences of life and society – biology and sociology – as well as the debate surrounding slavery and abolition.
The division of European society and culture along a North/South axis was one of the most decisive and enduring developments in the modern world. In North/South, which completes a trilogy of works devoted to the study of the mind and body of Europe, Ricardo J. Quinones examines the momentous early modern origins of this division. Quinones focuses on four concepts connected with the Protestant Reformation whose emergence defines the rise of the North and the subjugation of the South: Christian liberty, skepticism, tolerance, and time. Tracing their influence through the political and philosophical conflicts of the era and forward into the Enlightenment, he suggests that they constitute the basis of Europe’s transformation between the sixteenth century and the dawn of the industrial revolution. A fascinating combination of cultural and intellectual history, philosophy, and comparative literature written in the vein of Quinones’ award-winning Dualisms, this work, called “dazzling” by one critic, shows a contemporary pertinence with the relapse of the South into the subordinate position which it was thought to have overcome.
Transmitting the Ideal of Enlightenment is a collection of articles that shed light on different aspects of university education in China since the late nineteenth century and address how far the ideal of modern university education, which has gradually been developed in the West since the age of European Enlightenment, was adopted or creatively transformed by Chinese universities. In addition to examining the influence of Western universities' visions, curricula, institutions and experiences on Chinese higher education, this volume attempts to show the degree of success achieved by Chinese universities in delivering the goals of personal emancipation, broad-based education, freedom of teaching and learning, academic professionalism, etc. that their Western counterparts had endeavored to attain in the last centuries.
This media history explores a series of portable small cameras, playback devices, and storage units that have made the production of film and video available to everyone. Covering several storage formats from 8mm films of the 1900s, through the analogue videotapes of the 1970s, to the compression algorithms of the 2000s, this work examines the effects that the shrinkage of complex machines, media formats, and processing operations has had on the dissemination of moving images. Using an archaeological approach to technical standards of media, the author provides a genealogy of portable storage formats for film, analog video, and digitally encoded video. This book is a step forward in decoding the storage media formats, which up to now have been the domain of highly specialised technicians.
The goal of this textbook is to provide first-year engineering students with a firm grounding in the fundamentals of chemical and bioprocess engineering. However, instead of being a general overview of the two topics, Fundamentals of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering will identify and focus on specific areas in which attaining a solid competency is desired. This strategy is the direct result of studies showing that broad-based courses at the freshman level often leave students grappling with a lot of material, which results in a low rate of retention. Specifically, strong emphasis will be placed on the topic of material balances, with the intent that students exiting a course based upon this textbook will be significantly higher on Bloom’s Taxonomy (knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis and synthesis, evaluation, creation) relating to material balances. In addition, this book also provides students with a highly developed ability to analyze problems from the material balances perspective, which leaves them with important skills for the future. The textbook consists of numerous exercises and their solutions. Problems are classified by their level of difficulty. Each chapter has references and selected web pages to vividly illustrate each example. In addition, to engage students and increase their comprehension and rate of retention, many examples involve real-world situations.
The world has seen several financial and economic crises in the past few years. Psychological, ethical and philosophical levels of causal analysis have been discussed, and in this context, an interest in classical thinkers has emerged. The work of Aristotle has influenced writers from Marx and Menger to Amartya Sen. This book introduces us to Aristotle’s thought on 'the economic' and on its influences on economists. First, it focuses on Aristotle ́s ideas, situating Aristotle in his historical context, describing his positions on the economic and analysing what kind of reality the economic is, its relation with ethics and with politics. Then, it determines what kind of science is concerned with the economic. Later, it analyses related topics and shows the influence of Aristotle’s ideas on contemporary economists. It concludes by highlighting the Aristotelian contributions to today’s economy. This scholarly volume offers important new insights into the Aristotelian approach to the economy itself, as well as to the idea of economics as a science, bringing Aristotle’s views to bear on the modern economy.
Dualism is a motif that runs through literature of all genres and historical contexts, inspiring argumentation at the highest level and showing the formation of ideas in association as a creative exchange. It arises with special pertinence in western literature since the Renaissance and Reformation. In Dualisms, noted scholar Ricardo J. Quinones considers four major intellectual encounters: Erasmus and Luther, Voltaire and Rousseau, Turgenev and Dostoevsky, and Sartre and Camus. These four instances, Quinones argues, are important for what they are and what they represent: major intellectual contests that created the modern era and remain the 'agons' of our time. Through in-depth analysis, this study looks at the clarifications that emerged from four famous polemics. Discerning an 'itinerary of their encounters,' Quinones suggests a shared paradigm of development that is true for each of the examples of dualism. In all four cases, the two participants represented the vanguard of their time, and all of the debates started from shared intellectual positions until subsequent events revealed substantially different temperaments. It is the inescapable tension and connection between prior affinities and the discord of debate that continue to intrigue us. Dualisms is a tour-de-force, encompassing intellectual history, philosophy, theology, and literary criticism. It provides fresh perspectives on some of the most famous intellectual debates in all of literature, and considers the implications that they continue to have for the study of the humanities in the modern world.
Magnificent and Beggar Land is a powerful account of fast-changing dynamics in Angola, an important African state that is a key exporter of oil and diamonds and a growing power on the continent. Based on three years of research and extensive first-hand knowledge of Angola, it documents the rise of a major economy and its insertion in the international system since it emerged in 2002 from one of Africa's longest and deadliest civil wars. The government, backed by a strategic alliance with China and working hand in glove with hundreds of thousands of expatriates, many from the former colonial power, Portugal, has pursued an ambitious agenda of state-led national reconstruction. This has resulted in double-digit growth in Sub-Saharan Africa's third largest economy and a state budget in excess of total western aid to the entire continent. Scarred by a history of slave trading, colonial plunder and war, Angolans now aspire to the building of a decent society. How has the regime, led by President José Eduardo dos Santos since 1979, dealt with these challenges, and can it deliver on popular expectations? Soares de Oliveira's book charts the remarkable course the country has taken in recent years.
A Modern Introduction to Differential Equations, Second Edition, provides an introduction to the basic concepts of differential equations. The book begins by introducing the basic concepts of differential equations, focusing on the analytical, graphical, and numerical aspects of first-order equations, including slope fields and phase lines. The discussions then cover methods of solving second-order homogeneous and nonhomogeneous linear equations with constant coefficients; systems of linear differential equations; the Laplace transform and its applications to the solution of differential equations and systems of differential equations; and systems of nonlinear equations. Each chapter concludes with a summary of the important concepts in the chapter. Figures and tables are provided within sections to help students visualize or summarize concepts. The book also includes examples and exercises drawn from biology, chemistry, and economics, as well as from traditional pure mathematics, physics, and engineering. This book is designed for undergraduate students majoring in mathematics, the natural sciences, and engineering. However, students in economics, business, and the social sciences with the necessary background will also find the text useful. Student friendly readability- assessible to the average student Early introduction of qualitative and numerical methods Large number of exercises taken from biology, chemistry, economics, physics and engineering Exercises are labeled depending on difficulty/sophistication End of chapter summaries Group projects
The world needs a new economy. In spite of tremendous and growing material prosperity, inequality is on the rise and the current organization of the Earth’s natural resources has failed to address the basic human needs of billions of people. This book exposes the bottlenecks of the present path of economic growth and discusses the main path to alternatives. In spite of undeniable advances, all evidence points towards the growing depletion of the very ecosystems that societies depend on. By placing ethics squarely in the middle of economic life, this book demonstrates the need for a new economy, one that fosters unity between society, nature, economics and ethics. It questions the most important scientific and political pillar that forms the basis for evaluating social resource use: economic growth. Written in a non-specialist language, this book is an introduction to the main issues involving sustainable development. It will be essential reading for both students and professionals working in the field of socio-environmental responsibility.
Ranging from math to literature to philosophy, Uncountable explains how numbers triumphed as the basis of knowledge—and compromise our sense of humanity. Our knowledge of mathematics has structured much of what we think we know about ourselves as individuals and communities, shaping our psychologies, sociologies, and economies. In pursuit of a more predictable and more controllable cosmos, we have extended mathematical insights and methods to more and more aspects of the world. Today those powers are greater than ever, as computation is applied to virtually every aspect of human activity. Yet, in the process, are we losing sight of the human? When we apply mathematics so broadly, what do we gain and what do we lose, and at what risk to humanity? These are the questions that David and Ricardo L. Nirenberg ask in Uncountable, a provocative account of how numerical relations became the cornerstone of human claims to knowledge, truth, and certainty. There is a limit to these number-based claims, they argue, which they set out to explore. The Nirenbergs, father and son, bring together their backgrounds in math, history, literature, religion, and philosophy, interweaving scientific experiments with readings of poems, setting crises in mathematics alongside world wars, and putting medieval Muslim and Buddhist philosophers in conversation with Einstein, Schrödinger, and other giants of modern physics. The result is a powerful lesson in what counts as knowledge and its deepest implications for how we live our lives.
This book contains the papers that have been presented at the ninth Very Large Scale Integrated Systems conference VLSI'97 that is organized biannually by IFIP Working Group 10.5. It took place at Hotel Serra Azul, in Gramado Brazil from 26-30 August 1997. Previous conferences have taken place in Edinburgh, Trondheim, Vancouver, Munich, Grenoble and Tokyo. The papers in this book report on all aspects of importance to the design of the current and future integrated systems. The current trend towards the realization of versatile Systems-on-a-Chip require attention of embedded hardware/software systems, dedicated ASIC hardware, sensors and actuators, mixed analog/digital design, video and image processing, low power battery operation and wireless communication. The papers as presented in Jhis book have been organized in two tracks, where one is dealing with VLSI System Design and Applications and the other presents VLSI Design Methods and CAD. The following topics are addressed: VLSI System Design and Applications Track • VLSI for Video and Image Processing. • Microsystem and Mixed-mode design. • Communication And Memory System Design • Cow-voltage & Low-power Analog Circuits. • High Speed Circuit Techniques • Application Specific DSP Architectures. VLSI Design Methods and CAD Track • Specification and Simulation at System Level. • Synthesis and Technology Mapping. • CAD Techniques for Low-Power Design. • Physical Design Issues in Sub-micron Technologies. • Architectural Design and Synthesis. • Testing in Complex Mixed Analog and Digital Systems.
In this major new history of the Continental Army's Grand Forage of 1778, award-winning military historian Ricardo A. Herrera uncovers what daily life was like for soldiers during the darkest and coldest days of the American Revolution: the Valley Forge winter. Here, the army launched its largest and riskiest operation—not a bloody battle against British forces but a campaign to feed itself and prevent starvation or dispersal during the long encampment. Herrera brings to light the army's herculean efforts to feed itself, support local and Continental governments, and challenge the British Army. Highlighting the missteps and triumphs of both General George Washington and his officers as well as ordinary soldiers, sailors, and militiamen, Feeding Washington's Army moves far beyond oft-told, heroic, and mythical tales of Valley Forge and digs deeply into its daily reality, revealing how close the Continental Army came to succumbing to starvation and how strong and resourceful its soldiers and leaders actually were.
Drawing on The Medic Portal’s established track record, the third edition of this popular revision aid, retitled Mastering the UCAT to reflect the extension of the former UK-specific exam to prospective medical and dental students in Australia and New Zealand, takes you, step by step, through the proven techniques that have already helped thousands of our students achieve top scores. Our expert authors deconstruct all question types before leading you through core strategies, common pitfalls and top tips – as well as the tactics examiners use to trip you up.
In this book, we aim to provide a fairly comprehensive overview of the scalability and efficiency challenges in large-scale web search engines. More specifically, we cover the issues involved in the design of three separate systems that are commonly available in every web-scale search engine: web crawling, indexing, and query processing systems. We present the performance challenges encountered in these systems and review a wide range of design alternatives employed as solution to these challenges, specifically focusing on algorithmic and architectural optimizations. We discuss the available optimizations at different computational granularities, ranging from a single computer node to a collection of data centers. We provide some hints to both the practitioners and theoreticians involved in the field about the way large-scale web search engines operate and the adopted design choices. Moreover, we survey the efficiency literature, providing pointers to a large number of relatively important research papers. Finally, we discuss some open research problems in the context of search engine efficiency.
Using as a theme the encounter between protozoan parasites and macrophages, this volume brings together cell biologists, immunologists and protozoologists to review current developments in this broad and dynamic research area. Discussed are ways protozoans establish their intracellular niche, how they activate macrophage effector functions, what th
Surface Enhanced Vibrational Spectroscopy (SEVS) has reached maturity as an analytical technique, but until now there has been no single work that describes the theory and experiments of SEVS. This book combines the two important techniques of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and surface-enhanced infrared (SEIR) into one text that serves as the definitive resource on SEVS. Discusses both the theory and the applications of SEVS and provides an up-to-date study of the state of the art Offers interpretations of SEVS spectra for practicing analysts Discusses interpretation of SEVS spectra, which can often be very different to the non-enhanced spectrum - aids the practicing analyst
Entrepreneurship and innovation play a vital role in fostering sustainable development. Advances in technology and communications have both transformed the process of business and strengthened the role of entrepreneurship in developed and developing countries. This new edition of Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Sustainable Growth provides the fundamental concepts and applications for faculty and students in this field, and also serves as a professional reference for practicing entrepreneurs and policymakers. Each chapter provides a clear guide to the conceptual and practical elements that characterize entrepreneurship and the process of new venture formation, including functional strategies in key areas such as marketing, information technology, human resources management, and accounting and finance. Updated throughout to take account of recent developments in topics such as environmental impacts, diversity and inclusion, and COVID-19, the book is a comprehensive and holistic approach to the theory, policy, and practice of entrepreneurship and innovation. Keeping practicality as the book’s core aim, all chapters include a long case study to set the scene and then draw upon shorter cases from both developing and developed countries to reinforce key learning objectives and the real-world application of the book’s core concepts. With new questions and exercises presented throughout in order to encourage discussion and problem-solving, quick summaries of the important concepts and definitions, and extensive support for lecturers and students, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Sustainable Growth, Second Edition, is ideal for students at undergraduate and postgraduate level.
This book describes the benefits and drawbacks inherent in the use of virtual platforms (VPs) to perform fast and early soft error assessment of multicore systems. The authors show that VPs provide engineers with appropriate means to investigate new and more efficient fault injection and mitigation techniques. Coverage also includes the use of machine learning techniques (e.g., linear regression) to speed-up the soft error evaluation process by pinpointing parameters (e.g., architectural) with the most substantial impact on the software stack dependability. This book provides valuable information and insight through more than 3 million individual scenarios and 2 million simulation-hours. Further, this book explores machine learning techniques usage to navigate large fault injection datasets.
Farewell to Work? presents the new morphology of the working class, the substantial process of growing heterogeneity, complexity and fragmentation that labour has gone through since the 1970s.
Despite comparisons between Erasmus and Voltaire having become common-place in the course of the nineteenth century, this is the first full study to bring them together in their careers, their works, and their historic afterlives. Each was a force for change in his time and thus ranks among the masters of modern liberalism. Beginning with the continuities between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, award-winning scholar Ricardo J. Quinones joins Erasmus and Voltaire as voices of moderation and reason that remain capable of addressing the philosophical crises of twentieth-century thought. A companion piece to Dualisms, Quinones' 2007 book, Erasmus and Voltaire differs in method: where its predecessor looked to inveterate, unyielding differences, this new work looks to similarities. In delving beneath the obvious differences between these two intellectual giants, Quinones uncovers the great practical and spiritual vocations that unite them.
The aim of the book is to argue for the restoration of theoretical and practical reason to economics. It presents Nancy Cartwright and Amartya Sen’s ideas as cases of this restoration and sees Aristotle as an influence on their thought. It looks at how we can use these ideas to develop a valuable understanding of practical reason for solving concrete problems in science and society. Cartwright’s capacities are real causes of events. Sen’s capabilities are the human person’s freedoms or possibilities. They relate these concepts to Aristotelian concepts. This suggests that these concepts can be combined. Sen’s capabilities are Cartwright’s capacities in the human realm; capabilities are real causes of events in economic life. Institutions allow us to deliberate on and guide our decisions about capabilities, through the use of practical reason. Institutions thus embody practical reason and infuse certain predictability into economic action. The book presents a case study: the UNDP’s HDI.
The Spacious Word explores the history of Iberian expansion into the Americas as seen through maps and cartographic literature, and considers the relationship between early Spanish ideas of the world and the origins of European colonialism. Spanish mapmakers and writers, as Padrón shows, clung to a much older idea of space that was based on the itineraries of travel narratives and medieval navigational techniques. Padrón contends too that maps and geographic writings heavily influenced the Spanish imperial imagination. During the early modern period, the idea of "America" was still something being invented in the minds of Europeans. Maps of the New World, letters from explorers of indigenous civilizations, and poems dramatizing the conquest of distant lands, then, helped Spain to redefine itself both geographically and imaginatively as an Atlantic and even global empire. In turn, such literature had a profound influence on Spanish ideas of nationhood, most significantly its own. Elegantly conceived and meticulously researched, The Spacious Word will be of enormous interest to historians of Spain, early modern literature, and cartography.
The Index benchmarks national gender gaps on economic, political, education- and health-based criteria, and provides country rankings that allow for effective comparisons across regions and income groups, over time"--Page 3
In The Politics of Religion and the Rise of Social Catholicism in Peru (1884-1935) Ricardo Cubas Ramacciotti provides a lucid synthesis of the Catholic Church’s responses to the secularisation of the State and society whilst offering a fresh appraisal of the emergence of Social Catholicism and its contribution to social thought and development of civil society in post-independence Peru. Making use of diverse historical sources, Cubas provides a comprehensive view of a reformist yet anti-revolutionary trend within the Peruvian Church that, decades before the emergence of Liberation Theology and under divergent intellectual paradigms, developed an active agenda that addressed the new social problems of the country, including those of urban workers, and of indigenous populations.
An examination of the novels, short story collections, and poetry of the Latin American author In Understanding Roberto Bolaño, Ricardo Gutiérrez-Mouat offers a comprehensive analysis of this critically acclaimed Chilean poet and novelist whose work brought global attention to Latin American literature in the 1960s unseen since the rise of García Márquez and magic realism. Best known for The Savage Detectives, winner of the Rómulo Gallegos Prize; the novella By Night in Chile; and the posthumously published novel 2666, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, Bolaño died in 2003 just as his reputation was becoming established. After a brief biographical sketch, Gutiérrez-Mouat chronologically contextualizes literary interpretations of Bolaño's work in terms of his life, cultural background, and political ideals. Gutiérrez-Mouat explains Bolaño's work to an English-speaking audience—including his relatively neglected poetry—and conveys a sense of where Bolaño fits in the Latin American tradition. Since his death, eleven of novels, four short story collections, and three poetry collections have been translated into English. The afterword addresses Bolaño's status as a Latin American writer, as the former literary editor of El País claimed, "neither magical realist, nor baroque nor localist, but [creator of] an imaginary, extraterritorial mirror of Latin America, more as a kind of state of mind than a specific place.
Professor Quinones describes significant stages in the development of literary Modernism, redefining the period as extending from about 1900 to 1940, and beyond, and not as an entity centered on the 1920s. Originally published in 1985. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Presents a cultural ethnography and a guide to the forest birds of southern Chile and Argentina. This title includes entries on fifty bird species, such as the Magellanic Woodpecker, Rufous-Legged Owl, Ringed Kingfisher, Buff-Necked Ibis, Giant Hummingbird, and Andean Condor.
Children of Globalization is the first book-length exploration of contemporary Diasporic Coming-of-age Novels in the context of globalized and de facto multicultural societies. Diasporic Coming-of-age Novels subvert the horizon of expectations of the originating and archetypal form of the genre, the traditional Bildungsroman, which encompasses the works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Charles Dickens, and Jane Austen, and illustrates middle-class, European, "enlightened," and overwhelmingly male protagonists who become accommodated citizens, workers, and spouses whom the readers should imitate. Conversely, Diasporic Coming-of-age Novels have manifold ways of defining youth and adulthood. The culturally-hybrid protagonists, often experiencing intersectional oppression due to their identities of race, gender, class, or sexuality, must negotiate what it means to become adults in their own families and social contexts, at times being undocumented or otherwise unable to access full citizenship, thus enabling complex and variegated formative processes that beg the questions of nationhood and belonging in increasingly globalized societies worldwide.
Sixty years in the making and the capstone of a monumental literary career, The Diaries of Emilio Renzi: A Day in the Life is the final volume of the autobiographical trilogy from the author who is considered Borges’ heir and the vanguard of the Post-Boom generation of Latin American literature. Emilio Renzi, Piglia’s literary alter ego, navigates the tumultuous ups and downs of a post-Peronist Argentina filled with political unrest, economic instability, and a burgeoning literary scene ready to make its mark on the rest of the world. How could we define a perfect day? Maybe it would be better to say: how could I narrate a perfect day? Is that why I write a diary? To capture—or reread—one of those days of unexpected happiness? The final installment of Ricardo Piglia’s lifelong compilation of journals completes the seemingly impossible project of documenting the entire life of a writer. A Day in the Life picks up the thread of Piglia’s life in the 1980s until his death from ALS in 2017. Emilio Renzi, Piglia’s literary alter ego, navigates the tumultuous ups and downs of a post-Peronist Argentina filled with political unrest, economic instability, and a burgeoning literary scene ready to make its mark on the rest of the world and escape the shadows of legendary authors Jorge Luis Borges and Roberto Arlt. Renzi’s peripatetic, drinking, philandering ways don’t abate as he grows older, and we’re exposed to the intrinsic insecurities that continually plague him even as fate tips in his favor and he goes on to win international literary prizes and becomes professor emeritus of Princeton University. His literary success is marred only by the disappointments and tragedies of his personal life as he deals with the death of friends and family, failed relationships, and the constant pecuniary struggles of a writer trying to live solely on his ability to produce art. The final sections of this ambitious project intimately trace the deterioration of Piglia’s body after his diagnosis: My right hand is heavy and uncooperative but I can still write. When I can no longer…. The crowning achievement of a prolific, internationally acclaimed author, this third volume cements Ricardo Piglia’s position as one of the most influential Latin American authors of the last century. Praise for The Diaries of Emilio Renzi: A Day in the Life: “[A] posthumous autobiographical masterpiece…. [P]rofoundly moving. A meditation on both the accumulation and ephemerality of time, Piglia’s final work is a brilliant addition to world literature.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review “Filled with literary aperçus and fragments of history: an elegant, affecting close to a masterwork.” —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review Praise for The Diaries of Emilio Renzi: “Splendidly crafted and interspliced with essays and stories, this beguiling work is to a diary as Piglia is to ‘Emilio Renzi’: a lifelong alter ego, a highly self-conscious shadow volume that brings to bear all of Piglia’s prowess as it illuminates his process of critical reading and the inevitable tensions between art and life. Amid meeting redheads at bars, he dissects styles and structures with a surgeon’s precision, turning his gaze on a range of writers, from Plato to Dashiell Hammett, returning time and again to Pavese, Faulkner, Dostoyevsky, Arlt and Borges. Chock-full of lists of books and films he consumed in those voracious early years of call girls, carbon paper, amphetamines and Heidegger, this is an embarrassment of riches — by turns an inspiring master class in narrative analysis, an accounting of the pesos left in his pockets and a novel of Piglia’s grandfather (named Emilio, natch) with his archive of World War I materials pilfered from Italian corpses…. No previous familiarity with Piglia’s work is needed to appreciate these bibliophilic diaries, adroitly repurposed through a dexterous game of representation and masks that speaks volumes of the role of the artist in society, the artist in his time, the artist in his tradition.” —Mara Faye Lethem, The New York Times Book Review “For the past few years, every Latin American novelist I know has been telling me how lavish, how grand, how transformative was the Argentinian novelist Ricardo Piglia’s final project, a fictional journal in three volumes, Los diarios de Emilio Renzi—Renzi being Piglia’s fictional alter ego. And now here at last is the first volume in English, The Diaries of Emilio Renzi: Formative Years, translated by Robert Croll. It’s something to be celebrated… [It] offer[s] one form of resistance to encroaching fascism: style.” —Adam Thirlwell, BookForum, The Best Books of 2017 “[A] masterpiece…. everything written by Ricardo Piglia, which we read as intellectual fabrications and narrated theories, was partially or entirely lived by Emilio Renzi. The visible, cerebral chronicles hid a secret history that was flesh and bones.” —Jorge Carrión, The New York Times “A valediction from the noted Argentine writer, known for bringing the conventions of hard-boiled U.S. crime drama into Latin American literature...Fans of Cortázar, Donoso, and Gabriel García Márquez will find these to be eminently worthy last words from Piglia." —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review “When young Ricardo Piglia wrote the first pages of his diaries, which he would work on until the last years of his life, did he have any inkling that they would become a lesson in literary genius and the culmination of one of the greatest works of Argentine literature?” —Samanta Schweblin, author of Fever Dream “Ricardo Piglia, who passed away earlier this year at age seventy-five, is celebrated as one of the giants of Argentine literature, a rightful heir to legends like Borges, Cortázar, Juan Jose Saer, and Roberto Arlt. The Diaries of Emilio Renzi is his life's work...An American equivalent might be if Philip Roth now began publishing a massive, multi-volume autobiography in the guise of Nathan Zuckerman…It is truly a great work...This is a fantastic, very rewarding read—it seems that Piglia has found a form that can admit everything he has to say about his life, and it is a true pleasure to take it in.” —Veronica Esposito, BOMB Magazine “In 1957, Argentinian writer Ricardo Piglia started to write what would become 327 notebooks filled with the thoughts of his alter ego, Emilio Renzi. Piglia’s final literary act before his death in January 2017 was to organize and publish these works as Renzi’s diaries. Formative Years, the first of three volumes, covers the years 1957 to 1967, detailing Renzi’s development into a central figure of Argentine literary culture. In epigrammatic diary entries filled with memorable observations, Piglia details Renzi’s political education, relationships, views on Argentinian politics, and experiences during this remarkably productive era of Latin American fiction. As a fictionalized autobiography, it is, like the work of Karl Ove Knausgaard, of My Struggle fame, part confession and part performance. Renzi meets and corresponds with literary luminaries like Borges, Cortázar, and Márquez, and offers insightful readings of Dostoevsky, Kafka, Faulkner, and Joyce. Ilan Stavans (Quixote: The Novel and the World, 2015) provides a wonderfully informative introduction. Fans of W.G. Sebald and Roberto Bolaño will find the first installment in Piglia’s trilogy to be a fascinating portrait of a writer’s life.” —Alexander Moran, Booklist "Here through the Boom and Bolaño breech storms Ricardo Piglia, not just a great Latin American writer but a great writer of the American continent. Composed across his entire career, The Diaries of Emilio Renzi is Piglia's secret story of his shadow self—a book of disquiet and love and literary obsession that blurs the distinctness of each and the other." —Hal Hlavinka, Community Bookstore (Brooklyn, NY) “In this fictionalized autobiography, Piglia’s ability to succinctly criticize and contextualize major writers from Kafka to Flannery O’Connor is astounding, and the scattering of those insights throughout this diary are a joy to read. This book is essential reading for writers.” —Publishers Weekly “The Diaries of Emilio Renzi is a rare glimpse into the heart of twentieth-century Latin American literature, with the inimitable Ricardo Piglia as tour guide. More than just a traditional diary, Renzi is an illuminating voyage into the hearts of books and writers and history. An inspiring work and an important achievement.” —Mark Haber, Brazos Bookstore (Houston, TX) “The great Argentine writer…. In a career that spanned four decades, during which he became one of Latin America’s most distinctive literary voices.” —Alejandro Chacoff, The New Yorker “The Diaries of Emilio Renzi continue to be a fascinating literary-autobiographical experiment ... and, especially, a wonderful immersion in literature itself. Of particular interest in showing the transition of Latin American (and specifically Argentine) literature—no longer: ‘out of sync, behind, out of place’—Piglia's range extends far beyond that too. Yes, most of this is presumably mainly of interest to the similarly literature-obsessed—but Piglia makes it hard to imagine who wouldn't be.” — M. A. Orthofer, The Complete Review
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