In biology, signal transduction is the transmission of information into and within the cell. Signal transduction events within a cell are often initiated from an extracellular cue. Current knowledge suggests that there are far fewer intracellular second messengers than extracellular cues. This means that a conserved core set of second messengers, including ions, small nucleotides, and lipids must be coordinated to pass the information from their point of origin to their audience receptors effectively. In many cases, signal transduction involves significant amplification. One of the best-understood and ubiquitous second messengers is ionic calcium (Ca2+). The knowledge surrounding the coding of information via Ca2+ signals has served as a template for studying other second messengers. Ca2+ signaling and intracellular Ca2+ homeostasis are highly complex and still incompletely understood. In this chapter, will we review the current knowledge of Ca2+ signaling. We will first provide a review of the general principles of Ca2+ signal transduction and examples of some of the major Ca2+-dependent cellular processes. Next, we will review the main sources of Ca2+ and the molecular effectors of Ca2+ signals. Then, we will provide some examples from the literature that illustrate how Ca2+ signaling works: how it can mediate signal amplification, how it encodes different types of signals, how it performs agonist-specific signals as well as function-specific signals, signal integration and co-incidence detection, and how it can cross-talk with other second messenger signaling events. Throughout this chapter, we will use Ca2+ as an example of a prototypical coded second messenger, since it is clear that much of the complexity of Ca2+ signaling likely applies to many of the other known second messengers. Table of Contents: General Introduction / Sources of Ca2+ Signals / Ca2+-Dependent Processes: From Highly Specialized to Ubiquitous Cellular Roles / Major Ca2+-Signaling Effectors / Ca2+ Signal Coding / Acknowledgments / Bibliography / Titles of Related Interest
Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject Economics - Finance, grade: 1,0, University of Massachusetts Boston, language: English, abstract: As widely recognized, financial systems play an important role for economic growth. The German as well as the American economy seemed to be both very successful over the last decade in terms of GDP growth. Although both economies are successful, their financial systems differ widely. While the American system is strongly capital market-based, banks play the dominant role in the German financial system. As it was for a long time a purely bank-based system, it represented a unique financial system around the world. In this paper, I will point out the main features of the traditional German financial system. I will mainly focus on the role and structure of the financial sector, financing patterns of firms, and the German corporate governance system. So far, most academic literature has concentrated on the peculiarities of the “old” German financial system. In the following paper, recent developments will also be included. Major changes and trends of the German financial system since the begin-nings of the 2000s will be outlined, leading to the question if the system underwent a process of transformation from a bank-based to a capital market-based financial system. I will begin with a brief summary of the basic definitions, concepts and classifications that are necessary to describe and analyze the German financial system. In chapter 3, the “old” German financial system, called an international prototype of a bank-based system, is outlined. After ex-plaining the main elements of the “old” German financial system focusing on the financial sector, financing patterns of firms and the corporate governance system, recent changes and develop-ments since the 2000s will follow in chapter 4. Within chapter 4, the current state of the German financial system will be described with an emphasis on developments that could have led to a transformation to a capital market-based system. This description leads to the conclusion in chapter 5 that the German financial system has not transformed to capital market-based system and kept its unique peculiarities but is no longer a purely bank-based financial system.
This volume concerns premodern understandings of vegetal nature that encompass multiple semantics and perspectives. Scholars from the disparate fields of art history, literature, and religious studies present tantalizing studies of trees and plants in sacred and secular thought. Some discuss the concept of the Book of Nature and its implications. Others explore narratives of symbiosis between humans and vegetal material, tree-dwelling hermits, spirits metamorphosing into wood, flowers or trees that sprout from bodies or the dissolution of the self into the natural world. Complementary to these approaches are studies that suggest a collapsing of time and space in spiritually charged yet ambiguous natural motifs or topographies where forests or groves are spaces of transformative experience.
A thrilling, eye-popping look at true crime in the billion-dollar art world. The art world is one of the most secretive of global businesses, and the list of its crimes runs long and deep. Today, with prices in the hundreds of millions for individual artworks, and billionaires' collections among the most conspicuous and liquid of their assets, crime is more rampant than ever in this largely unregulated universe. Increased prices and globalization have introduced new levels of fraud and malfeasance into the art world--everything from "artnapping," in which an artwork is held hostage and only returned for a ransom, to forgery and tax fraud. However, the extent of the economic and cultural damage that results from criminality in the global art scene rarely comes to light. The stories of high-stakes, brazen art crimes told by art experts Stefan Koldehoff and Tobias Timm are by turns thrilling, disturbing, and unbelievable (the imagination for using art to commit crimes seems boundless). The authors also provide a well-founded analysis of what needs to change in the art market and at museums. From the authors of False Pictures, Real Money (about the Beltracchi art forgery case), Art and Crime includes a chapter on art owned by Donald Trump. It is a thoroughly researched, explosive, and highly topical book that uncovers the extraordinary and multifarious thefts of art and cultural objects around the world.
Florian Dörschel deals with the martial side of German chivalry towards the end of the Middle Ages. Knightly violence was at the center of social, military and political life as an instrument of power, representation and communication. Florian Dörschel befasst sich mit der kriegerischen Seite des deutschen Rittertums im ausgehenden Mittelalter. Diese ritterliche Gewalt stand als Machtinstrument, Repräsentations- und Kommunikationsmittel im Mittelpunkt des sozialen, militärischen und politischen Lebens.
‘Truly astonishing in its detail … this must be one of the most illuminating and enlightening biographies to date.’ Michael Eavis cbe, Founder of the Glastonbury Festival A brilliant new biography of the mystic poet and artist William Blake – and the first to explore his startlingly original quest for spiritual truth, as well as the profound lessons he has for us all today. The hymn ‘Jerusalem’, with its famous words by William Blake, stirs our hearts with its evocation of a new holy city built in ‘England’s green and pleasant land’. However, until now, the spiritual essence of William Blake has been buried under myriad inadequate biographies, college dissertations and arts commentaries, written by people who have missed the luminescent keys to Blake’s symbolism and liberating spirit. Any attempt to uncover the ‘real’ Blake is thwarted by his status as a legend or ‘national treasure’. In Jerusalem! Tobias Churton expertly takes you beyond this superficial façade, showing you Blake the esoteric genius – a myth-maker, brilliantly using symbols and theology to express his unique insights into the nature of body, mind and spirit. Churton is not only deeply knowledgeable about Blake’s life and times, but also uses his shared values with Blake to enter into his labyrinth of thought and feeling. Challenging the conventional views of Blake as either a ‘romantic poet’ or a rebel with ideas about free sex, Tobias Churton’s startling new biography reveals, at last, the real William Blake in all his glory, so that anyone who sings ‘Jerusalem’ in future will see its beauty with renewed understanding. With access to a large body of never-before-published records – letters, diaries, pamphlets and books – Tobias Churton casts unprecedented light and perspective on William Blake’s life and times. Blake’s writing – heartfelt, vivid and profound – accounts for his status as one of the best-loved poets writing in English. Americans need no reminding that Blake inspired Ralph Waldo Emerson and American visionary Walt Whitman. Yet he spent the larger part of his creative career being ridiculed and suppressed. In Jerusalem! Churton conjures a superb portrait of Blake’s London, and in particular the rivalries of the cultural community in which the poet-artist was often misunderstood. He argues that Blake believed Man does not ‘belong’ to society; rather,we are all members of the Divine Body, co-existent with God. He was concerned with a total spiritual revival – what had gone wrong with Man, and how to put it right. Blake’s message has proved to be as challenging to today’s readers as it was to his contemporaries. Blake perceived, so far ahead of his time, that the philosophy of materialism would dominate the world – a culture from which we now yearn to break free. Jerusalem! is unashamedly ambitious in its scope and objective. Churton ends once and for all the persistent notion of Blake as a startling peculiarity, whilst emancipating him from the labels of ‘Romantic poet’ or ‘national treasure’. Even if it means sacrificing some cherished illusions or uncovering a few painful surprises, this compelling biography reveals, for the first time, the true spirit of William Blake.
The Second World War affected the lives and shaped the experience of millions of individuals in Germany - soldiers at the front, women, children and the elderly sheltering in cellars, slave labourers toiling in factories, and concentration-camp prisoners and POWs clearing rubble in the Reich's devastated cities. Taking a 'history from below' approach, the volume examines how the minds and behaviour of individuals were moulded by the Party as the Reich took the road to Total War. The ever-increasing numbers of German workers conscripted into the Wehrmacht were replaced with forced foreign workers and slave labourers and concentration camp prisoners. The interaction in everyday life between German civilian society and these coerced groups is explored, as is that society's relationship to the Holocaust. From early 1943, the war on the home front was increasingly dominated by attack from the air. The role of the Party, administration, police, and courts in providing for the vast numbers of those rendered homeless, in bolstering civilian morale with 'miracle revenge weapons' propaganda, and in maintaining order in a society in disintegration is reviewed in detail. For society in uniform, the war in the east was one of ideology and annihilation, with intensified indoctrination of the troops after Stalingrad. The social profile of this army is analysed through study of a typical infantry division. The volume concludes with an account of the various forms of resistance to Hitler's regime, in society and the military, culminating in the failed attempt on his life in July 1944.
• Reveals Crowley’s sex magick relations in London and his contacts with important figures, including Dion Fortune, Gerald Gardner, Jack Parsons, Dylan Thomas, and black equality activist Nancy Cunard • Explores Crowley’s nick-of-time escape from the Nazi takeover in Germany and offers extensive confirmation of Crowley’s work for British intelligence • Examines the development of Crowley’s later publications and his articles in reaction to the Nazi Gestapo actively persecuting his followers in Germany After an extraordinary life of magical workings, occult fame, and artistic pursuits around the globe, Aleister Crowley was forced to spend the last fifteen years of his life in his native England, nearly penniless. Much less examined than his early years, this final period of the Beast’s life was just as filled with sex magick, espionage, romance, transatlantic conflict, and extreme behavior. Drawing on previously unpublished diaries and letters, Tobias Churton provides the first detailed treatment of the final years of Crowley’s life, from 1932 to 1947. He opens with Crowley’s nick-of-time escape from the Nazi takeover in Germany and his return home to England, flat broke. Churton offers extensive confirmation of Crowley’s work as a secret operative for MI5 and explores how Crowley saw World War II as the turning point for the “New Aeon.” He examines Crowley’s notorious 1934 London trial, which resulted in his bankruptcy, and shares inside stories of Crowley’s relations with Californian O.T.O. followers, including rocket-fuel specialist Jack Parsons, and his attempt to take over H. Spencer Lewis’s Rosicrucian Order. The author reveals Crowley’s sex magick relations in London and his contacts with spiritual leaders of the time, including Dion Fortune and Wicca founder Gerald Gardner. He examines Crowley’s dealings with artists such as Dylan Thomas, Alfred Hitchcock, Augustus John, Peter Warlock, and Peter Brooks and dispels the accusations that Crowley was racist, exploring his work with lifelong friend, black equality activist Nancy Cunard. Churton also examines the development of Crowley’s later publications such as Magick without Tears as well as his articles in reaction to the Nazi Gestapo who was actively persecuting his remaining followers in Germany. Presenting an intimate and compelling study of Crowley in middle and old age, Churton shows how the Beast still wields a wand-like power to delight and astonish.
The poems, plays, and political writings in this volume are essential to an understanding of Smollett and the literary and social currents of eighteenth-century England. In his introductions to the sections, Gassman traces the history of their publication and reception, and provides extensive explanations of historical and literary allusions.
First published in 1753, this experimental work explores the relations between history and fiction while introducing episodes of Gothic melodrama. Filled with satiric thrusts at the legal, medical, and military establishments of mid-eighteenth-century Europe, the novel reveals Smollett's capacities as a commentator on contemporary life.
This work is a large, powerfully illustrated interdisciplinary natural sciences volume, the first of its kind to examine the critically important nature of ecological paradox, through an abundance of lenses: the biological sciences, taxonomy, archaeology, geopolitical history, comparative ethics, literature, philosophy, the history of science, human geography, population ecology, epistemology, anthropology, demographics, and futurism. The ecological paradox suggests that the human biological–and from an insular perspective, successful–struggle to exist has come at the price of isolating H. sapiens from life-sustaining ecosystem services, and far too much of the biodiversity with which we find ourselves at crisis-level odds. It is a paradox dating back thousands of years, implicating millennia of human machinations that have been utterly ruinous to biological baselines. Those metrics are examined from numerous multidisciplinary approaches in this thoroughly original work, which aids readers, particularly natural history students, who aspire to grasp the far-reaching dimensions of the Anthropocene, as it affects every facet of human experience, past, present and future, and the rest of planetary sentience. With a Preface by Dr. Gerald Wayne Clough, former Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and President Emeritus of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Foreword by Robert Gillespie, President of the non-profit, Population Communication.
The economic climate is ripe for another golden age of shareholder activism Deep Value: Why Activist Investors and Other Contrarians Battle for Control of Losing Corporations is a must-read exploration of deep value investment strategy, describing the evolution of the theories of valuation and shareholder activism from Graham to Icahn and beyond. The book combines engaging anecdotes with industry research to illustrate the principles and methods of this complex strategy, and explains the reasoning behind seemingly incomprehensible activist maneuvers. Written by an active value investor, Deep Value provides an insider's perspective on shareholder activist strategies in a format accessible to both professional investors and laypeople. The Deep Value investment philosophy as described by Graham initially identified targets by their discount to liquidation value. This approach was extremely effective, but those opportunities are few and far between in the modern market, forcing activists to adapt. Current activists assess value from a much broader palate, and exploit a much wider range of tools to achieve their goals. Deep Value enumerates and expands upon the resources and strategies available to value investors today, and describes how the economic climate is allowing value investing to re-emerge. Topics include: Target identification, and determining the most advantageous ends Strategies and tactics of effective activism Unseating management and fomenting change Eyeing conditions for the next M&A boom Activist hedge funds have been quiet since the early 2000s, but economic conditions, shareholder sentiment, and available opportunities are creating a fertile environment for another golden age of activism. Deep Value: Why Activist Investors and Other Contrarians Battle for Control of Losing Corporations provides the in-depth information investors need to get up to speed before getting left behind.
How fin-de-siècle Paris became the locus for the most intense revival of magical practices and doctrines since the Renaissance • Examines the remarkable lives of occult practitioners Joséphin Peladan, Papus, Stanislas de Guaïta, Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, Jules Doinel, and others • Reveals how occult activity deeply influenced many well-known cultural movements, such as Symbolism, the Decadents, modern music, and the “psychedelic 60s” During Paris’s Belle Époque (1871-1914), many cultural movements and artistic styles flourished--Symbolism, Impressionism, Art Nouveau, the Decadents--all of which profoundly shaped modern culture. Inseparable from this cultural advancement was the explosion of occult activity taking place in the City of Light at the same time. Exploring the magical, artistic, and intellectual world of the Belle Époque, Tobias Churton shows how a wide variety of Theosophists, Rosicrucians, Martinists, Freemasons, Gnostics, and neo-Cathars called fin-de-siècle Paris home. He examines the precise interplay of occultists Joséphin Peladan, Papus, Stanislas de Guaïta, and founder of the modern Gnostic Church Jules Doinel, along with lesser known figures such as Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, Paul Sédir, Charles Barlet, Edmond Bailly, Albert Jounet, Abbé Lacuria, and Lady Caithness. He reveals how the work of many masters of modern culture such as composers Claude Debussy and Erik Satie, writers Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire, and painters Georges Seurat and Alphonse Osbert bear signs of immersion in the esoteric circles that were thriving in Paris at the time. The author demonstrates how the creative hermetic ferment that animated the City of Light in the decades leading up to World War I remains an enduring presence and powerful influence today. Where, he asks, would Aleister Crowley and all the magicians of today be without the Parisian source of so much creativity in this field? Conveying the living energy of Paris in this richly artistic period of history, Churton brings into full perspective the characters, personalities, and forces that made Paris a global magnet and which allowed later cultural movements, such as the “psychedelic 60s,” to rise from the ashes of post-war Europe.
Throughout the twentieth century, neuronal researchers knew the adult human brain to be a thoroughly fixed and immutable cellular structure, devoid of any developmental potential. Plastic Reason is a study of the efforts of a few Parisian neurobiologists to overturn this rigid conception of the central nervous system by showing that basic embryogenetic processesÑmost spectacularly the emergence of new cellular tissue in the form of new neurons, axons, dendrites, and synapsesÑcontinue in the mature brain. Furthermore, these researchers sought to demonstrate that the new tissues are still unspecific and hence literally plastic, and that this cellular plasticity is constitutive of the possibility of the human. Plastic Reason, grounded in years of fieldwork and historical research, is an anthropologistÕs account of what has arguably been one of the most sweeping events in the history of brain researchÑthe highly contested effort to consider the adult brain in embryogenetic terms. A careful analysis of the disproving of an established truth, it reveals the turmoil that such a disruption brings about and the emergence of new possibilities of thinking and knowing.
Training material for therapist interested in an eclectic approach to therapy. This paradigm merges therapeutic schools into a unified approach to therapy. This new paradigm unifies different schools of therapy into one aligned methodology. Hypnotic, cognitive and biological schools interacting in harmony.
The music reviews of Robert Schumann and Richard Wagner are central documents of 19th-century German musical culture. This book takes a closer look at the way these texts were written and explores the significant contributions Schumann and Wagner made to the discourse of musical appraisal. To that effect, the author raises fundamental questions that have thus far remained unaddressed: What textual features characterize the critical writings? How do Schumann and Wagner understand their roles as critics of music? And in what way do they reach out to the reader? Rather than understanding these critical writings exclusively as a gateway to the compositions and musical aesthetics of Schumann and Wagner, this book analyzes the texts through the lens of pragmatics, narratology and discourse analysis. Using this interdisciplinary perspective, the author proposes to understand Schumann and Wagner within the broader medial and discursive context of German ‘Kritik’. He challenges the dominant narrative that brands Schumann and Wagner as elitist Romantic critics, demonstrating instead that they actively encourage their readers to form their own judgements. This volume is an indispensable resource for scholars of German literature, periodicals and music alike.
Offering a decisive challenge to the older reception of Pusey as a paragon of backwards scholarship, Tobias A. Karlowicz argues that Pusey is properly understood as a penetrating and original theologian whose work anticipated contemporary conversations about the nature of theology, and a pivotal figure in the history of Anglican theology. Karlowicz locates the heart of Pusey's project in a theological perception which looks through the physicality and concreteness of language, to discern Christ at the centre of both Scripture and the physical creation. This 'sacramental vision,' which grew from Pusey's critique of Christianity's decay and his formative engagement with patristic hermeneutics and ontology, forms his teaching on the sacraments as vehicles for a Christian life of eucharistic self-oblation in union with Christ, and demonstrates the relevance of his thought to contemporary theology.
Tobias Krüger explores the discovery of the Ice Ages, how the idea was received, and what further research it stimulated. The approach used in Discovering the Ice Ages is uniquely sweeping. The contemporary debates on the subject are compared from an international perspective. Krüger retraces the arguments advanced from the middle of the 18th century to the threshold of the 20th century. The positions held by defenders of the glacial theory as well as those by its most important opponents are set within the context of the then current understanding of geology. In an interdisciplinary overview Krüger then focuses on the impetus gained from early ice-age research. The most prominent examples worth mentioning are the discovery of trace gases and the greenhouse effect.
Die marmorne Liegestatue der frühchristlichen Jungfrau und Märtyrerin Cäcilie, die sich seit ihrer Entstehung zum Jubeljahr 1600 an ihrem ursprünglichen Aufstellungsort in Rom befindet, gilt aufgrund innovativer Rahmung und Formensprache als bahnbrechend in der westlichen Kunst. Im Hinblick auf ihren kulturellen, religiösen, sozialen und politischen Hintergrund wurde sie aber bislang noch nie umfassend untersucht. Die vorliegende, interdisziplinäre Studie widmet sich genau diesem Kraftfeld. Es bestimmt die Genese, Bedeutung und frühe Rezeption des Grabbildes Cäciliens wie auch des Stifters, Kardinal Paolo Camillo Sfondrato. Die Figur wirkt nicht nur im gesamten Kircheninnenraum der der Heiligen geweihten Basilika, sondern strahlt in eine wegweisende, frühmoderne Welt aus. Zugleich reflektiert sie Zeitströmungen derart, dass sie als künstlerische Summe ihrer Epoche gelten kann. The reclining marble statue of the early Christian virgin martyr Cecilia, completed by the Holy Year of 1600 and still in its original setting in the Roman basilica bearing the saint’s name, has long been recognised as a seminal work in Western art. Yet its cultural, religious, social and political background has never been comprehensively investigated. This interdisciplinary analysis explores the constellation of forces that shaped the genesis, meaning and early reception of the sculpture – a funeral image for both its donor, Cardinal Paolo Camillo Sfondrato, and Cecilia – as well as its impact on the church interior and the contemporary viewer. The cult image emerges as a synthesis of an epoch that is fundamental to our understanding of early modern culture.
This work presents approaches to extend limits of scanning probe microscopy techniques towards more versatile instruments using integrated sensor concepts. For structural surface analysis, magnetoresistive sensing is introduced and thermoresistive sensing is applied to study nanoscale phonon transport in chain-like molecules. Investigating with these techniques the properties of shape memory polymers, a fabrication method to design application-inspired micro- and nanostructures is introduced.
This textbook offers a unified and self-contained introduction to the field of term rewriting. It covers all the basic material (abstract reduction systems, termination, confluence, completion, and combination problems), but also some important and closely connected subjects: universal algebra, unification theory, Gröbner bases and Buchberger's algorithm. The main algorithms are presented both informally and as programs in the functional language Standard ML (an appendix contains a quick and easy introduction to ML). Certain crucial algorithms like unification and congruence closure are covered in more depth and Pascal programs are developed. The book contains many examples and over 170 exercises. This text is also an ideal reference book for professional researchers: results that have been spread over many conference and journal articles are collected together in a unified notation, proofs of almost all theorems are provided, and each chapter closes with a guide to the literature.
At last, the unexpurgated, true story of the amazing Aleister Crowley—philosopher, poet, artists, writer, magus, explorer, parapsychology—and spy. Packed with fresh research and previously unpublished ‘Crowleyana.’ For 100 years, Aleister Crowley’s true achievements have been suppressed and his true character defaced in a campaign of vilification unparalleled in British history. Until now, Crowley’s life has not been written—it has been written over. Tobias Churton is a world authority on Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, and Gnosticism. In writing Aleister Crowley, he enjoyed complete access to all Crowley’s restricted papers, unpublished letters and personal diaries kept in a trust at London’s Warburg Institute and in the Ordo Templi Orientis archives. Ninety percent of the authentic material here has never before been published.
Most European countries are rather small, yet we know little about their monetary history. This book analyses for the first time the experience of seven small states (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland) during the last hundred years, starting with the restoration of the gold standard after World War I and ending with Sweden's rejection of the Euro in 2003. The comparative analysis shows that for the most part of the twentieth century the options of policy makers were seriously constrained by a distinct fear of floating exchange rates. Only with the crisis of the European Monetary System (EMS) in 1992–3 did the idea that a flexible exchange rate regime was suited for a small open economy gain currency. The book also analyses the differences among small states and concludes that economic structures or foreign policy orientations were far more important for the timing of regime changes than domestic institutions and policies.
Following author Tobias Wabbel’s research and investigation throughout Europe, this book solves the mystery of the treasure of the Knights Templar. The most up-to-date archeological and historical information is discussed, from the history of the Knights Templar and the history of the Israelites and the Ark of the Covenant, to medieval literature and Gothic cathedral architecture. Disproving common theories—the Knights Templar never guarded the pilgrimage ways in Palestine, there is no Priory of Sion, there is no bloodline from Jesus to the present day, and there is no authentic Shroud of Turin—the book also proves the existence of the sacred Ark of the Covenant, also known as the treasure of the Knights Templar, which is still hidden in France. Wabbel researched iconography in the architecture of cathedrals and chapels, and found more evidence in texts and inscriptions that led to his theory on the location of the Templar treasure. Both a travel guide to the secrets of the treasure of the Knights Templar and a fascinating read, this book will shake commonly held beliefs on this interconnected history and renew the interest in it.
This book explains how today's insurance industry developed and highlights the role of the reinsurance industry in spreading risks globally. The book examines the development of insurance markets and of the reinsurance industry in particular, and the history of Swiss Re, one of the leading reinsurance companies in the world.
Schon um die Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts verfügten die deutschen Bergleute mit den zahlreichen lokalen Knappschaftsvereinen über ein eigenes institutionalisiertes Sozialversicherungssystem mit einer langen, ins Mittelalter zurückreichenden Tradition. Ihren Mitgliedern boten die Knappschaftsvereine Versicherungsschutz gegen die wesentlichen Daseinsrisiken Krankheit, Invalidität, Tod des Ernährers der Familie und Langlebigkeit. Mit Blick auf die Periode zwischen Knappschaftsgesetz einerseits und Gründung der Reichsknappschaft andererseits (1854-1923) untersucht diese Arbeit ein versicherungsökonomisches Problem, über das bereits die zeitgenössischen Beobachter der Knappschaftsvereine intensiv diskutierten: Wie ist die optimale Größe eines Sozialversicherungsträgers zu bestimmen und zu implementieren? Gibt es überhaupt eine „optimale“ Größe? Oder gilt nicht vielmehr „je größer, desto besser“? Vor dem Hintergrund zweier ökonomischer Kategorien – versicherungstechnisches Risikos und Verwaltungseffizienz – werden diese Fragen am konkreten historischen Beispiel der preußischen Knappschaftsvereine untersucht. Obwohl die jüngere Historiographie die außerordentliche Bedeutung der Knappschaftsvereine des 19. Jahrhunderts als eines der ersten Sozialversicherungssysteme überhaupt herausgestellt hat, stellt deren Wirtschafts- bzw. Versicherungsgeschichte ein Forschungsdesiderat dar. Diese Arbeit füllt zu einem gewissen Grad diese Forschungslücke, indem sie auf ein historisches Phänomen fokussiert, dessen Analyse nicht ohne den direkten Bezug auf grundlegende ökonomische Zusammenhänge auskommt: der zu beobachtende Prozess interner und insbesondere externer Konzentration innerhalb der Knappschaftsvereine, der spätestens mit dem frühen 1870iger Jahren einsetzte und in der Gründung der Reichsknappschaft kulminierte.
This new edition brings to life Tobias Smollett's fourth novel, The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves. No annotated edition of the work existed before the second half of the twentieth century, and this comprehensive edition by Robert Folkenflik and Barbara Laning Fitzpatrick features more accurate text as well as scrupulous textual and critical information. Also included in the detailed introduction is a unique examination of Sir Launcelot Greaves, the first illustrated serial novel, in relation to the engravings by Anthony Walker. Sir Launcelot Greaves was a groundbreaking novel for Smollett. Published in British Magazine beginning in January 1760, it was the first major work by an English novelist to have been written specifically for serial publication. The novel, Smollett's shortest, differs stylistically from his previous works. The most attractive of his heroes, Sir Launcelot is virtuous and strange, and he is surrounded by a Smollettian menagerie whose various jargons are part of this novel's linguistic virtuosity and satire. Sir Launcelot's character is an English naturalization of Quixote. Although Sir Launcelot, unlike Quixote, is not the object of the author's satire, an idealistic madness is central to both characters. In Smollett's work the theme of madness is integral to the relationship between self and society as the work ponders both the constitution of madness and the alternatives to revenge. Sir Launcelot Greaves, though not Smollett's most heralded work, has not received the recognition it deserves. Folkenflik and Fitzpatrick present a definitive edition that will be appreciated by scholars and lovers of eighteenth-century literature.
Through the prism of the rise and fall of Galeazzo Ciano (1903-1944), this biography is a comprehensive study of a leading member of the fascist regime other than Benito Mussolini.
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