Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) is widely celebrated as the most original political thinker in Western Marxism and an all-around outstanding intellectual figure. Arrested and imprisoned by the Italian Fascist regime in 1926, Gramsci died before fully regaining his freedom. Nevertheless, in his prison notebooks he recorded thousands of brilliant reflections on an extraordinary range of subjects, establishing an enduring intellectual legacy.

Columbia University Press's multivolume Prison Notebooks is the only complete critical edition of Antonio Gramsci's seminal writings in English. The notebooks' integral text gives readers direct access not only to Gramsci's influential ideas but also to the intellectual workshop where those ideas were forged. Extensive notes guide readers through Gramsci's extraordinary series of reflections on an encyclopedic range of topics. Volume 1 opens with an introduction to Gramsci's project, describing the circumstances surrounding the composition of his notebooks and examining his method of inquiry and critical analysis. It is accompanied by a detailed chronology of the author's life. An unparalleled translation of notebooks and 2 follows, which laid the foundations for Gramsci's later writings. Most intriguing are his earliest formulations of the concepts of hegemony, civil society, and passive revolution.

Joseph A. Buttigieg is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English and a fellow of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of A Portrait of the Artist in Different Perspective and has edited or coedited The Legacy of Antonio Gramsci, Criticism Without Boundaries, Gramsci and Education, and European Christian Democracy.

“What the future fortunes of [Gramsci's] writings will be, we cannot know. However, his permanence is already sufficiently sure, and justifies the historical study of his international reception. The present collection of studies is an indispensable foundation for this.” —Eric Hobsbawm, from the preface

Antonio Gramsci is a giant of Marxian thought and one of the world's greatest cultural critics. Antonio A. Santucci is perhaps the world's preeminent Gramsci scholar. Monthly Review Press is proud to publish, for the first time in English, Santucci's masterful intellectual biography of the great Sardinian scholar and revolutionary.

Gramscian terms such as “civil society” and “hegemony” are much used in everyday political discourse. Santucci warns us, however, that these words have been appropriated by both radicals and conservatives for contemporary and often self-serving ends that often have nothing to do with Gramsci's purposes in developing them. Rather what we must do, and what Santucci illustrates time and again in his dissection of Gramsci's writings, is absorb Gramsci's methods. These can be summed up as the suspicion of “grand explanatory schemes,” the unity of theory and practice, and a focus on the details of everyday life. With respect to the last of these, Joseph Buttigieg says in his Nota: “Gramsci did not set out to explain historical reality armed with some full-fledged concept, such as hegemony; rather, he examined the minutiae of concrete social, economic, cultural, and political relations as they are lived in by individuals in their specific historical circumstances and, gradually, he acquired an increasingly complex understanding of how hegemony operates in many diverse ways and under many aspects within the capillaries of society.”

The rigor of Santucci's examination of Gramsci's life and work matches that of the seminal thought of the master himself. Readers will be enlightened and inspired by every page.

Understanding sociolinguistics as a theoretical and methodological framework hopefully could attempt to promote change and social development in human communities. Yet it still presents important political, epistemological, methodological and theoretical challenges. A sociolinguistics of development, in which the revitalization of linguistic communities is the priority, opens new perspectives for the emerging field of linguistic documentation, in which the societal aspects of research, stressed by sociolinguistics, have frequently been marginal. The need to focus on the documentation of linguistic communities to contribute to the revitalization of these communities requires an in-depth revision of a number of different perspectives. Especially regarding the links between commonly separated fields of enquiry such as sociolinguistics, documentation and revitalization. Instead of creating mere museum pieces of academic contemplation for the future, as has been the major trend up to now in language documentation and even sociolinguistics, there is a growing concern to join forces to revitalize the actual use of endangered languages in order to place languages as a main focus of a community’s development which constitutes a major challenge for both scholars, civil society and speakers alike.

Il problema ambientale non è solo scientifico, tecnico e politico, ma anche culturale, etico e religioso, perché al fondo della crisi ecologica c'è la questione della giustizia, dell'uguaglianza dei diritti umani e del rispetto verso il mondo naturale. Dato che la scienza non stabilisce ciò che è buono, bisogna ricorrere alla norma etica, alla creazione di una nuova mentalità, e all'influsso della religione, per offrire una coscienza alle scienze, perché queste si orientino al bene comune. In questo campo, la voce di Francesco d'Assisi ha molto da dire, e non sono pochi quelli che desiderano ascoltarlo, per poter camminare più umanamente in questa casa comune, chiamata pianeta Terra.

«Chi sei tu? Chi sono io?» ripeteva san Francesco sul monte della Verna, mentre invocava la luce di Dio sulla sua vita. A distanza di otto secoli queste domande restano ancora attuali: ognuno di noi desidera conoscere il volto di Dio e le profondità di se stesso. L'Autore attraverso un costante riferimento all'esperienza del Santo di Assisi ci introduce in un grande viaggio: imparare a dare un senso nuovo alla nostra vita e riscoprire il senso di infinito che abita il cuore dell'uomo.

Tre scrittori raccontano da tre diverse prospettive una sola misteriosa protagonista. Noela è una donna indipendente, all'apparenza fredda, figlia di un esiliato cubano e di una spagnola. La sua professione di fotografa la rende testimone di guerre e conflitti in tutto il mondo, e noi veniamo scoprendone poco a poco la personalità a prima vista dura e difficile, segnata dal rapporto con il padre e con i diversi uomini della sua vita. Alla fine del romanzo avremo di fronte una donna esigente, energica e al contempo tenera e allegra, con un grande potere di seduzione che le permetterà di irretire persino un uomo che la segue attraverso l'obiettivo di un fucile.

l testo nasce dalla volontà dell'Autore di avvicinare e, prima ancora, di 'avvicinarsi a' coloro che, allontanatisi da una fede cui erano stati iniziati da bambini, hanno tuttavia mantenuto un legame con essa: 'So che dentro di voi la fede in Dio non si è spenta. In molti continuate ad ammirare Gesù, anche se forse non lo conoscete bene né pensate a lui spesso. Avete fatto la cosa più facile: mettere da parte una religione che non vi aiutava a vivere meglio'. Nato dall'esperienza diretta dell'Autore, dal suo confronto con chi gli ha confidato i propri dubbi e pregiudizi, la voglia di riavvicinarsi ma di non sapere come, il desiderio di credere ma al tempo stesso il rifiuto verso le credenze e le pratiche di altri tempi, questo volume accompagna in un cammino molto concreto, che muove dal 'basso', dalla 'terra', dalla vita del lettore: 'Non vi voglio esporre dottrine teoriche. Vi parlo con il cuore in mano, cercando di entrare in sintonia con quanto state vivendo nel profondo del vostro cuore. Vi voglio solo suggerire alcuni passi per imparare a vivere e a sentire Dio in maniera diversa'. Il testo è corredato da allegati: - per orientare gruppi di ricerca con pratici suggerimenti (spunti di riflessione, preghiere, domande provocatorie); - per aiutare i credenti che desiderano animare questi gruppi. Chiude il volume una sezione di testi presi dai Salmi e divisi per argomenti adatti per la preghiera personale o di gruppo. Il testo si inserisce nel filone esplorato dal documento della Conferenza Episcopale Italiana: Lettera ai cercatori di Dio.

Kurtuan, l'Apostolo nero, il signore dei vampiri, ha costruito una città sotterranea dove i suoi figli possono nascondersi agli occhi degli uomini... Egli sa che un terribile pericolo grava su quelli della sua stirpe e decide così di convocare gli altri undici apostoli per chiedere il loro aiuto. Secondo alcune leggende, verrà un'era oscura in cui lui e quelli come lui regneranno per sempre sulla Terra... ma ci sono anche altre profezie, meno note, sussurrate, che preannunciano l'arrivo nel nostro mondo di un angelo, il quale si incarnerà in un uomo che potrebbe mettere in serio pericolo il loro futuro regno... Questo angelo porterà con sé un'era di perfezione in tutto l'universo... Dopo il suo trionfo, non esisteranno più dolore, peccato o morte... e ovviamente, non esisteranno più le creature della notte...

This book presents classical inequalities and specific inequalities which are particularly useful for attacking and solving optimization problems. Most of the examples, exercises and problems that appear in the book originate from Mathematical Olympiad contests around the world. The material is divided into four chapters. In Chapter 1 algebraic inequalities are presented, starting with the basic ones and ending with more sophisticated techniques; Chapter 2 deals with geometric inequalities and Chapter 3 comprises a comprehensive list of recent problems that appeared in those contests during the last 14 years. Finally, hints and solutions to all exercises and problems are given in Chapter 4.

In this Spanish bestseller, now available in English for the first time, the famous Biblical scholar Jose Antonio Pagola reconstructs the historical Jesus with a scholarly exegetical and theological approach. He addresses basic questions about who Jesus was; how he understood his life; what was the originality of his message; how the vision of the Kingdom of God centered his life; and why he was executed and who intervened in the process. The author presents a lively and passionate narrative of Jesus of Nazareth within the milieu of the first century, locating him in his social, economical, political and religious contexts based on current and accepted research. He also analyzes the perspectives and conclusions of the most important scholars in this research and presents a profound and extensive scholarly theological reflection about Jesus.

Creolization describes the cultural adaptations that occur when a community moves to a new geographic setting. Exploring the consciousness of peoples defined as 'creoles' who moved from the Old World to the New World, this collection of eighteen original essays investigates the creolization of literary forms and genres in the Americas between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Creole Subjects in the Colonial Americas facilitates a cross-disciplinary, intrahemispheric, and Atlantic comparison of early settlers' colonialism and creole elites' relation to both indigenous peoples and imperial regimes. Contributors explore literatures written in Spanish, Portuguese, and English to identify creole responses to such concepts as communal identity, local patriotism, nationalism, and literary expression.

The essays take the reader from the first debates about cultural differences that underpinned European ideologies of conquest to the transposition of European literary tastes into New World cultural contexts, and from the natural science discourse concerning creolization to the literary manifestations of creole patriotism. The volume includes an addendum of etymological terms and critical bibliographic commentar.

Contributors
Ralph Bauer, University of Maryland
Raquel Chang-Rodriguez, City University of New York
Lucia Helena Costigan, Ohio State University
Jim Egan, Brown University
Sandra M. Gustafson, University of Notre Dame
Carlos Jauregui, Vanderbilt University
Yolanda Martinez-San Miguel, University of Pennsylvania
Jose Antonio Mazzotti, Tufts University
Stephanie Merrim, Brown University
Susan Scott Parrish, University of Michigan
Luis Fernando Restrepo, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
Jeffrey H. Richards, Old Dominion University
Kathleen Ross, New York University
David S. Shields, University of South Carolina
Teresa A. Toulouse, Tulane University
Lisa Voigt, University of Chicago
Jerry M. Williams, West Chester University

This book provides tools and knowledge in a simple way such that the reader is able to implement a particular QRD-RLS algorithm tailored for the application at hand. The material presents not only classical and recent research results but also the expertise of a number of authors that have contributed to the development of this fast converging class of adaptive filter algorithms. The intended audience encompasses graduate students, researchers, and practitioners working in the field of adaptive filtering or in need of using a robust and fast converging algorithm.

Sturgeons are considered “living fossils”, sharing many morphological and biological features with ancestral fish. Furthermore, sturgeons are of the utmost interest from an economic perspective, not only for the caviar but for the flesh. However, the wild populations of the majority of the species are at serious risk of extinction all over the world. So, it is urgent to develop strategies for both farming culture and conservation and recovery in natural habitats.This book provides a comprehensive view of the biology and sustainable development of sturgeons putting emphasis on the Southern Europe autochthonous species such as Acipenser nacarii and Acipenser sturio that share geographical distribution. Other relevant species (such as Huso huso, A. oxyrhinchus, A. ruthenus, A. stellatus) and areas (Germany, Russia, North America) are also considered. The contents are organised in three sections: Taxonomy and Biogeography (including the morphological and genetic analyses that clarify the taxonomy and phylogeny of sturgeons, focused on those from Southern Europe), Biology and Aquaculture (where several aspects of the developmental biology, feeding, and reproduction are considered in relation to the improvement of sturgeon farming), and Recovery and Conservation (that collates and analyses different recovery research actions, the ecology of the rivers for restoration as well as the problems related to the trade of caviar).

For students, scientists, and professionals, Antonio (International Society of Sports Nutrition) et al. bring together 28 chapters on sports nutrition and supplements. Dietitians, sport scientists, exercise and sport nutritionists, academics, and individuals working in other fields (mostly in the US) provide chapters on basic exercise physiology, principles and assessment, nutrition, supplements, and topics such as legal aspects and low carbohydrate diets. The accompanying CD contains a study guide. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

XNA is a new cross-platform game development framework with which non-professionals can create single-user and multi-user games that run in Windows and Xbox360. Three Brazilian game developers explain how to do it. They do not cover the advanced programming concepts that are necessary to become a professional, but, rather, they introduce basic concepts and how they map onto the new software. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Provides an introduction to High-Altitude Platform Stations (HAPS) technology and its applications for wireless communications

High-altitude platform stations offer a promising new technology that combines the benefits of terrestrial and satellite communication systems for delivering broadband communications to users at a low cost. They are easily deployable and easy to maintain, which is why they offer a good alternative for network operators who need to find ways to get more coverage to satisfy the increasing demand for more capacity. HAPS are usually balloons, airships or unmanned aerial systems (UAS) located in the stratosphere.  An enormous interest has grown worldwide to examine their use not only for broadband communications, but also for emergency services, navigation, traffic monitoring, cellular, etc.

Key features include:

• Unique book focusing on emerging HAPS technology and its applications

• Provides a thorough overview of the technology including HAPS-based communications systems, antennas for HAPS, radio propagation and channel modelling issues and HAPS networking aspects

• Presents various HAPS-related projects and initiatives developed throughout the world (North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific)

• Features a comprehensive overview on both aeronautical and telecommunications regulatory aspects, which will affect the deployment and future developments in the field of HAPS

High-Altitude Platform Systems for Wireless Communications will prove essential reading for postgraduate students in the field of HAPS, engineers, developers and designers involved in the design and maintenance of HAPS, aerospace engineers, and communications system planners and researchers.

This book brings together important topics of current research in probabilistic graphical modeling, learning from data and probabilistic inference. Coverage includes such topics as the characterization of conditional independence, the learning of graphical models with latent variables, and extensions to the influence diagram formalism as well as important application fields, such as the control of vehicles, bioinformatics and medicine.

This volume contains the lectures held at the International Symposium on Cancer 'New Trends in Cancer for the 21st Century'. Fundamental researchers, politicians and representatives from patient coalitions share their knowledge and interests as well as their concerns and experiences. Not only do these papers provide state-of-the-art information on cancer, they are also an opportunity to look at the problem from different points of view.

Dowani 3 Tempi Play Along is an effective and time-tested method of practicing that offers more than conventional play-along editions. Dowani 3 Tempi Play Along enables you to learn a work systematically and with accompaniment at different tempi. The first thing you hear on the CD is the concert version in a first-class recording with solo instrument and orchestral, continuo, or piano accompaniment. Then the piano or harpsichord accompaniment follows in slow and medium tempo for practice purposes with the solo instrument heard softly in the background at a slow tempo. Finally, you can play at the original tempo to the accompaniment of an orchestra, piano, or basso continuo. All versions appearing on the CD were recorded live by renowned soloists, accompanists, and orchestras. There are no synthesised sounds in a Dowani edition!

Dealing with Catholic instruments of religious devotion produced in New Mexico from about 1760 to the radical transformation of local artistic tradition in the 20th century, scholars of art history, music, literature, genetics, and other disparate fields argue that local artistic practice is indebted to many cultural traditions, and question why the tradition in New Mexico has been understood exclusively in terms of its Spanish roots. They also contend that the art traditions there have significance in art history and theory generally. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

This book addresses the following question: why are presidential democracies more likely to break down than parliamentary ones? Conventional wisdom among political scientists pointS to the incentives generated by the form of government itself; the independence of the executive and legislature that defines presidentialism generates incentives that are not conducive to the consolidation of democracy. On the basis of a data set that covers all democracies between 1946 and 2002, this book demonstrates that this is not the case: the incentives generated by presidentialism are as conducive to the consolidation of democracy as the ones generated by parliamentarism. The book argues that what kills presidentialism is the fact that it exists in countries where democracies of any type are not likely to survive. This book will be of interest to academic researchers, graduates and advanced undergraduates enrolled in courses on comparative politics and political economy.

This survey presents a fresh chronicle of a largely overlooked subject as well as hundreds of images, many of them newly photographed, of more than 150 of the most interesting and best preserved monasteries in Spain, Portugal, France, Great Britain, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Italy - all of which are accessible to visitors. Over the centuries a number of buildings, including churches, in these monastic complexes have been masterworks of architecture. Among the notable places shown here are Mont-Saint-Michel, a wondrous Benedictine sanctuary off the coast of Brittany, Alcobaca, a treasured Cistercian monastery in Portugal from the early Gothic period, and the fabled pilgrimage site in Assisi founded by St. Francis.
The author relates the rich cultural heritage of each monastery featured and provides a detailed architectural portrait. He also contributes an introduction to monasticism and a concise history of the various orders dating from the early Christian era to the present. In addition, the volume includes plans of the sites, a glossary, and a bibliography.
Architects, historians, and art lovers will be captivated by the collection of photographs in this volume and will find the text an invaluable account of the artistic glory of European monasteries.

The Democracy Sourcebook offers a collection of classic writings and contemporary scholarship on democracy, creating a book that can be used by undergraduate and graduate students in a wide variety of courses, including American politics, international relations, comparative politics, and political philosophy. The editors have chosen substantial excerpts from the essential theorists of the past, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, Alexis de Tocqueville, and the authors of The Federalist Papers; they place them side by side with the work of such influential modern scholars as Joseph Schumpeter, Adam Przeworski, Seymour Martin Lipset, Samuel P. Huntington, Ronald Dworkin, and Amartya Sen.The book is divided into nine self-contained chapters: 'Defining Democracy,' which discusses procedural, deliberative, and substantive democracy; 'Sources of Democracy,' on why democracy exists in some countries and not in others; 'Democracy, Culture, and Society,' about cultural and sociological preconditions for democracy; 'Democracy and Constitutionalism,' which focuses on the importance of independent courts and a bill of rights; 'Presidentialism versus Parliamentarianism'; 'Representation,' discussing which is the fairest system of democratic accountability; 'Interest Groups'; 'Democracy's Effects,' an examination of the effect of democracy on economic growth and social inequality; and finally, 'Democracy and the Global Order' discusses the effects of democracy on international relations, including the propensity for war and the erosion of national sovereignty by transnational forces.

Written by many working conductors, this book considers all facets of musical conducting. It includes practical advice on how to conduct different groups (choral, opera, symphony, early music) and a history of conducting presented as a study of national traditions. Designed for the lay reader who wants an inside look at the world of conducting as well as for potential students, it is a revealing study about a secretive industry. Managers, artistic directors, soloists, players and conductors openly discuss their different perspectives in this comprehensive work.