Arkhangelsk Oblast Investment & Business Guide (Russian Regional Investment & Business Guides)

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Arkhangelsk Oblast Investment & Business Guide (Russian Regional Investment & Business Guides)
USA International Business Publications
Manufacturer: International Business Publications, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding
ASIN: 0739729551

Book Description

This investment and business guide contains basic information on economy, business & investment climate and opportunities in the region, as well as information on selected export-import, business and investment opportunities, including, export-import, industrial development, banking & finance, government and business contacts. The guide also provides listing and contact information for major industrial, trade, service and other companies in the region, as well as information on selected export-import, business and investment opportunities.

Arkhangelsk Oblast Regional Investment and Business Guide (World Business Intelligence Library)

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Arkhangelsk Oblast Regional Investment and Business Guide (World Business Intelligence Library)

Manufacturer: Intl Business Pubns USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Policy & Current Events | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Development & Growth | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Economic Policy & Development | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Exports & Imports | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | International | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0739790552

Book Description

INTRODUCTION

Sitting squarely in the middle of America, surrounded by hundreds of miles of pancake-flat prairies, Chicago is, in many ways, the last great American city. Having come of age during the industrial age - the grain, lumber, meatpacking, steel and railroad trades all took turns dominating the economic landscape - Chicago's blue-collar roots still shine through, with all the can-do attitude of a small town, the ambition and diversity of a dynamic metropolis, and a distinct lack of pretension throughout. While the city may stand in the shadow of more cosmopolitan New York or cutting-edge LA, there's no shortage of top-notch art and architecture, or street-level excitement, with less of the hassle and infrastructure problems of the coastal rivals.

Chicago's reputation as the stomping ground of Prohibition-era gangsters like Al Capone may still loom large in most people's minds, along with images of the backroom dealing perfected by politicians, but the truth is rather less lurid. These days, Chicago is better known for its sports obsessions, as Chicagoans are, for better or worse, loyally supportive of their teams; the ever-inconsistent Chicago Cubs' games remain well attended thanks to marquis players like Sammy Sosa and the atmosphere conjured up at grand old Wrigley Field.

Founded in the early 1800s, the city grew up with the country, serving as the main connection between the established East Coast cities and the wide open Wild West frontier. This position on the sharp edge between civilization and wilderness made the city into a crucible of innovation, something only enhanced by the chance the city had to start over, after the Fire of 1871, in which much of central Chicago burned to the ground - one of the worst fires in US history. Indeed, many aspects of modern American life, from skyscrapers to suburbia, had their start, and perhaps their finest expression, here on the shores of Lake Michigan.

In the early years of the twentieth century, the city cemented a reputation as a place of limitless opportunity, with jobs aplenty for those willing to work - and was the obvious destination for those seeking opportunity in the Midwest. The city swelled with immigrants from Eastern Europe, Sweden, Mexico, Italy, Greece, Germany, China and Ireland, as well as migrants from the Deep South, all of whom have left their mark, some more indelibly than others, making Chicago something of a quirky metropolis in America's heartland. What other city, after all, would dye its river green to celebrate St Patrick's Day?

Meanwhile, some eighteen million visitors come to Chicago each year, making it one of the top tourist destinations in the country. While they invariably tour the city's wide range of excellent museums and other high-brow attractions, Chicago's strongest cultural suit is live music, with a phenomenal array of jazz and blues clubs packed into the backrooms of its amiable bars and cafés; it's not a stretch to say that modern blues music was invented here. The rock scene is also one of the healthiest in the country, with a profusion of bands having come out of the city in the 1990s. And almost everything is noticeably less expensive than in other US cities - eating out, for example, costs much less than in New York or LA, but is every bit as good.

Customer Reviews:

Yay!.......2007-07-18

This book was so helpful. I moved to Chicago for 7 weeks for an internship, and everyone I knew there came to ME to figure out what do do in the city and how to get there. This book was the reason.

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Human-Centric Self-Governance--Take Back the Power

Should interest mangagers and artists too.

Amazing Book, Amazing Man

This book gives you a moral boost

The Revolution BEFORE the Revolution

Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with Karel Huizdala
Vaclav Havel
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Political | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
General | Germany | Europe | History | Subjects | Books
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The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central-Eastern Europe

The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of '89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, and Prague

ASIN: 0679734023
Release Date: 1991-04-03

Book Description

An intimate history of Czechoslovakia under communism; a meditation on the social and political role of art, and a triumphant statement of the values underlying all the recent revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe.

Customer Reviews:

Human-Centric Self-Governance--Take Back the Power.......2002-06-26

This book should be read as an adjunct to the author's other major book along these lines on power to the powerless.

The most gripping and troubling conclusion that I drew from this book is that the United States of America is today much closer to where Czechoslovakia was in 1968 than anyone other than the Chomsky's and Vidal's might be willing to admit. We have both a federal government and a national corporate economy that thrives on elitist secrecy and blatant lies--even our non-profit sector is corrupt, from the Red Cross to United Way to many others. The people, the citizen-voters, truly have lost all power, as well as access to the information that might give them back the power, and this is indeed a black, absurdist-realist situation.

On a more positive note, the author offers up, in the course of a long series of interviews, a number of ideas that are relevant to America today, as well as to any other emerging or re-emergent democracies in the making.

1) Model of behavior. When arguing with the center of power, do not get side-tracked with ideological debates over right or wrong. Focus on very specific concrete things (e.g. term limits, campaign finance reform, neighborhood economics) and stick to your guns.

2) Popular coalitions. Non-violent non-partisan popular coalitions are the core means of taking back the power. They represent a means for bring together groups of people from widely divergent backgrounds, with genuine social tolerance.

3) Informal networks. Even under conditions of repression and censorship, informal networks of dissidents and quasi-dissidents can be effective in sharing information through samizdat publications. [With the Internet, these possibilities explode, although caution must be taken on the fringes since the Internet is easily monitored and the more radical leaders could be declared seditionist "combatants" ineligible for their rights as citizens...speaking of the Soviet Union, of course, not America.]

4) Man versus Machine. Havel reaches his own conclusions founded in Czech literature and his own experience, with respect to the urgency of restoring the kinship and human connections that used to drive politics, economics, and other aspects of organized living. He is at one with Lionel Tiger among many others, with respect to the terribly consequences of the industrial era in terms of de-humanizing decision-making and allowing remote elites to treat individual workers as dispensable cogs in the machine, whose lives matter not a whit.

5) Neighborhoods, Politics "From Below". He joins the authors of the Cultural Creatives (Paul Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson) and of IMAGINE: What America Could be in the 21st Century (Marianne Williamson) in emphasizing the vital role that neighborhoods must play in any democracy. From political self-governance to sustainable economics to low-cost healthy agriculture to cultural cohesion, neighborhoods are the sin qua non of democracy--without active neighborhoods, one can go so far as to say, national democracy is a sham, a false theater, fully equivalent to the centralized, repressive, inefficient totalitarian control states of earlier eras.

6) Small Numbers Can Make a Difference. I was struck by how few were the original dissidents and organizers--in some cases, 20-30 in number, in others 70-80. Earlier studies have suggested that Hitler took power over millions with just 25,000 people. One can only hope that the anti-thesis is true, and that the 50 million cultural creatives can take back the power by getting serious about organizing across neighborhoods and into a national network.

7) Art and theater matter. Even under conditions of severe censorship and control, art and theater can be the manifestation of uncensored life, "life that spits on all ideology and all that lofty word of babble; a life that intrinsically resist(s) all forms of violence, all interpretations, all directives....here stood truth..."

8) Absurdity is a warning. Nihilistic and absurd theater or other works of art are a caution. They "do not offer us consolation or hope (but) merely remind( ) us of how we are living: without hope.

9) Truth can be misappropriated. The author experienced the misappropriation of his words and was both hurt and enlightened, ultimately creating a play about truth, the circumstances in which it is said, and the whom, why, and how of it.

10) Great men doubt themselves. Most touching are the author's many retrospective and current references to his insecurities, to his doubting himself even as he made history and became President of Czechoslovakia.

11) Writers live to tell the truth. This is certainly not true of most American writers who write for money, but it reflects the ideal and merits thought.

12) Change the atmosphere. If you can do nothing else, strive for a moral mobilization and a change in the atmosphere of governance, at any level. We cannot even begin to conceive the magnitude of the positive changes that can occur overnight if the people begin to speak truth among themselves. Work toward a process "in which people's civic backbones (begin) to straighten again."

13) Role of the intellectual. While I the reviewer would churlishly doubt that America has many intellectuals right now, the author's concluding words on the role of the intellectual strike me as very important: "...the intellectual should constantly disturb, should bear witness to the misery of the world, should be provocative by being independent, should rebel against all hidden and open pressure and manipulations, should be the chief doubter of systems, of power and its incantations, should be a witness to their mendacity."

Any person concerned about the corruption and misdirection of their government and their corporate as well as non-profit entities, will be provoked and inspired by this book. It speaks to the future of human life as it might be, were we willing to stand up straight and be counted at citizen-voters, active at every level beginning with our own neighborhoods.

Should interest mangagers and artists too........2002-02-24

Other reviews are right on the money in terms of this being a very good book and of course it covers many key elements of the events and times during the changes in Czechoslovakia. However the are several key messages, and lessons for anyone interested in managing, motivating and leading people; particularly through difficult or uncharted changes. There are also some good reflections on the role, character and nature of theater and other individual and group activities in the arts.

Amazing Book, Amazing Man.......2000-12-30

This is a fine book about an amazing man. I was truly inspired by Vaclav Havel after reading this book. This book is an "easy read" even though it is largely about weighty matters. It is an interesting and enlightening book.

This book gives you a moral boost.......2000-10-03

Whenever I need a moral boost I go back and reread Vaclav Havel's
"Disturbing the Peace". This book is a series of essays by the
dissident Vaclav Havel that were smuggled out of communist
Czechoslovakia and translated by a Havel friend in the West. Vaclav
Havel was a playwright who became a Czech dissident who became leader
of the Velvet revolution (which ousted the communists) and who finally
became president of the republic.

Vaclav Havel was the foremost
dissident under the communist regime. He openly challenged the ruling
government with such essays as "Power to the Powerless" and
"The Soul of Main under Communism". (Actually I forgot the name
of the latter essay. I think "The Soul of Man under Communism"
is an essay written by Oscar Wilde. But Havel did address this theme
in "Disturbing the Peace" and in essays he forwarded to the
communist rulers.)

One of the most exciting parts of the book is
where Havel describes the dissident communitie's efforts to publish a
Havel essay advocating that the Czech government adhere to the terms
of the Charter 77 human rights accord to which they were a signatory.
The story is spine tingling thriller complete with car chases and
obscure drop points. It reads like a John le Carre novel except it is
real.

After you read "Disturbing to Peace" I also recommend
"The Magic Lanten" by Timothy Garton Ash. This is a first hand
account of the fall of the communism as the democratic revolution
rolled across Czechoslovakia, East German, Hungary, and Romania.
Garton Ash was privy to the inner circle of people who plotted and
executed these bloodless coups. (Bloodless everywhere except, of
course, in Romania.)

The Revolution BEFORE the Revolution.......1999-04-24

This is the most insightful book I've ever read on the spirit of political dissent. It was published as Havel's responses to a series of written interview questions smuggled to him while he was under watch in the 80s. From this vantage point, 1989 is nowhere on the horizon. Thus, there is no triumphalism in the way Havel understands his generation. He is deeply meditative, and even-handed, about the human condition. There are no tremendous feats of courage, just a bounteous sense of passion, reasonableness, and brotherhood. This private spirit of solidarity led a community of leaders to establish a civil society in the interstices of an oppressive system. I read this in China, a very different environment that does not share all same characteristics that made Havel's movement successful. To better understand the limits of contemporary dissent in China, I'd recommend Merle Goldman's (dense) "Sowing the Seeds of Democracy in China" or Zhang Xianliang's "Grass Soup" -- his un-hyperbolic work-camp memoirs of the Anti-Rightist Campaign in the 1950s. Zhang is now a CCP member, but that doesn't diminish in the least the power of the message.

Product Description

Memories of when radio was king adn cotton sack underclothes were the rage. Memories of a nation at war: ration books, jam for Britain, women in industry and "digging for victory."

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I ABSOLUTELY LOVED THIS BOOK!

Excellent, in-depth work

Dipping into History

Excellent, accessible and fascinating history

Rob Roy MacGregor: His life and times
W. H Murray
Manufacturer: Barnes & Noble Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Scotland | Europe | History | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0760701768

Customer Reviews:

I ABSOLUTELY LOVED THIS BOOK!.......2006-08-17

Murray does a great job of telling us about the true Rob Roy MacGregor (versus the tarted up Sir Walter F. Scott rendition to quote an English friend friend of mine)! Murray explains clearly the politics of the time in England, and the Lowlands and Highlands of Scotland: Christianity (Catholicism and Protestantism); the Whigs and the Torys; etc. He gives a vivid depiction of the Highland way of life from the daily routine to engaging in commerce amongst local Highland clans, the Lowlanders, and England. Let's not forget "abduction" of live-stock for which Rob Roy in particular was well-noted. There is even information on the materials used in the dying of kilt and tartan plaids. The impression one gets is that if the Highlanders were left alone to continue their way of life, who knows how wonderfully it would have evolved and what contributions they could have made to the world. Murray is given extra credit here because he had to re-start this writing while in a Nazi POW camp. A must read for all who are interested in all things Scottish!

Excellent, in-depth work.......2000-02-24

A fascinating biography. This book inspired the film with Liam Neeson, but is so much more than a glimpse of the incidents chronicled in the film. W.H. Murray has given a well-researched, well-documented look at highland life that enables the reader to step into the shoes (or lack thereof) of the Scottish highlander. Everything from the clan structure, rivalries, English oppression, how to carry a handful of oats dipped in a stream for daily ration; it's all there. Mr. Murray gives us very detailed information on the subtleties of the constantly changing political climate and the MacGregor's sense of injustice.

This book is a must-read for anyone with even a passing interest in Scotland, the MacGregor Clan, or Rob Roy himself.

Dipping into History.......1999-12-29

This is a book for a scholar or a person dipping into Scottish history for the first time. An excellent book about Highlanders and there are precious few books available on the topic. The author has considered vast quanitities of sources; the only books lacking are Gaelic language sources such as those bilingual editions published by the Scottish Academic Texts Society. The author shows a broad understanding of the politics and economics of the period; what is unique is an attempt to understand Gaelic society. The "creach" or cattle raid is explained from a Highland point of view; it's a custom sanctified in the great Gaelic epic "Táin Bó Cuailgne". The format is very appealing as historical events are related to the colourful life of this one honourable man.

Excellent, accessible and fascinating history.......1999-04-21

This is an elegantly written, thorough, balanced and fascinating account of a deservedly highly admired man.

The author provides a comprehensive historic and social background and a detailed biography. Real history, not the current hip Celtic fashion or Braveheart drivel.

I found the book moving and inspiring. A picture of an honourable, intelligent and courageous man, living his life by the laws of his time; a man who deserves to be remembered.

The film Rob Roy with Liam Neeson, runs amazingly close to this book. If you were inspired by the film, I think you will greatly enjoy this biography.

I'd also recommend John Prebble for his classic works on Culloden and Glencoe and the Highland Clearances.

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ROB ROY MACGREGOR HIS LIFE AND TIMES

Manufacturer: Canongate
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000H3AEZG

Amazon.com

Picking up where his much-praised memoir The Dark Lady from Belorusse left off, Jerome Charyn continues the story of his childhood adventures in the Bronx. The year is 1949, and 11-year-old "Baby" (the nickname survived the 1947 arrival of younger brother Marve) regularly skips school to sneak off to a local movie theater, the Luxor. He's informally adopted by the theater's three eccentric owners, Bronx natives and classmates at Harvard who dropped out to purchase the Luxor and share a nearby apartment. Two of them pine for their former high school teacher, the married (and alcoholic) Mrs. Green, while the third burns with unrequited passion for a handsome fireman. Next, Baby connects with a local gangster, who sends him out to collect protection money from the area's businesses, ostensibly as payment for cases of celery tonic. The extensive stretches of dialogue are as colorful as the characters, and if it all seems a little too picturesque to be believable, well, the "Note to the Reader" does admit that the people, places, and events depicted "are the product of imaginative recreation." Who cares? Charyn's roistering account brings to life postwar New York City with such vividness and gusto that if it isn't true, it ought to be. --Wendy Smith

Book Description

A Memoir"It was easy to invent a fable.When the letters did come from school, I'd scratch out a note in my father's hand, talk of fatigue, visits to the brain surgeon, etc.The East Bronx was like the Sahara, where a child and all his records could get lost in some infinite sand dune."What does an 11 year-old boy do when his classmates call him "Dumbo" and his parents don't seem to know that he exists?His mother, the beautiful Faigele spends her days pushing her 2 year-old son Marvin around in a stroller and barely hears Jerome's clarinet playing. The answer for Jerome Charyn is to go to the local movie house and hide out for a few hours every day.At the movies, he can escape, not be himself for a little while. One day, while watching Samson and Delilah for the seventh time that week, he is suddenly grabbed from his seat, dragged down a flight of stairs and winds up being introduced to a whole new way of life by three "cellar rats," as Jerome likes to call them.They make him a part of their group and he soon finds himself dressed in a Feuerman Marx suit collecting money for Farouk, the local gangster. Many of the men remember his mother, The Dark Lady, from her days as dealer of their local poker game.With his distinctive style, a deep and accurate feeling for time and place, and an uncanny ability to communicate the world as seen through the imagination of an unusual boy, Charyn has created another gem of a memoir, a worthy sequel to The Dark Lady from Belorusse.

Customer Reviews:

Bronx Archipelago.......2001-08-16

"The Black Swan", is the sequel to, "The Dark Lady From Belorusse". I have not read the first volume, however the sequel stands on its own as a great piece of writing. I certainly intend to go back to the first, but if the latter were the only volume at hand, I would not hesitate to recommend others begin with it as I did. The book is described as a memoir, however there is a note at the end that states that events while based on his experiences as a youth also, "are the product of imaginative recreation". The balance of the disclaimer either is meant to be amusing, or is an effort to keep the Author out of the Federal Witness Protection Program.

The setting is The Bronx a few years after World War II. Amongst the other colorful characters, this is the time of Meyer Lansky who influences more than one event in the book. There are a host of other lesser members of the crime world that deal with anything from gambling, to cornering the market on Celery Tonic.

The one venture outside the Bronx is to the Catskill Mountains home not only to the name of the book, The Black Swan, but is also the residence of The Dark Lady who deals cards to her various infamous admirers. Throughout all of this is great humor whether of the darker sort related to King Farouk and The Bataan March, or what is the cigarette of preference at a school for asthmatics in Arizona.

After the disclaimer in the rear, I don't know where the line separating fact from imaginative recreation resides. Were all of the book true it would be a remarkable story as well as hilarious, and if fiction, nothing is diminished from a reading perspective. Who knows, maybe the kid did have a probation officer he fell hard for who was Lana Turner's twin. Fact or fantasy, who cares, a great piece of writing.

A singular, poignant memoir.......2001-06-16

Charyn's prose defies category: though published as nonfiction, this memoir reads like some of his singular, post-modern detective fiction. Transports us back to the Bronx of yore, with a cast of characters that's unforgettable.

Memoirs Are Made of This (Little Black Dress)

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loved the fast pace of a single in New York
Such a massive let down....
Confused

Memoirs Are Made of This (Little Black Dress)
Swan Adamson
Manufacturer: Headline Book Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Romance | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0755333667

Customer Reviews:

loved the fast pace of a single in New York.......2007-09-11

"Memoirs" was a laugh a minute....as an older woman I was tickled that I could identify all the neurotics from my own life in these well written characters.......give us more "Venus"!!!

Such a massive let down...........2007-08-14

When I got the email that this was out and I paid a HUGE full price for it, I was truly expecting to be wowed with news of Venus. Instead you get a confusing, and BORING story that looks like it should have been released YEARS ago. What the heck? I don't understand what happened here.

Confused.......2007-07-10

I had read Swan Adamson's other two books My 3 Husbands and Confessions of a Pregnant Princess and was looking forward to getting the newest installment in the life of Venus Gilroy. Then I started to read it and got very confused. The book starts off shortly after My Three Husbands left off, but then so did Confessions of a Pregnant Princess. It is hard to tell wither this is supposed to come before Confessions of a Pregnant Princess or if this is what really happened and Venus just wished that what happened in Confessions of a Pregnant Princess happened to her.

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Memoirs of Mipsie (Black Swan S.)
Mary Dunn
Manufacturer: Corgi Childrens
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Book Description

How is it possible for a seriously flawed human being to produce art that is good, true, and beautiful? Why is the art of Richard Wagner, a very imperfect man, important and even indispensable to us?

In this volume, Father Owen Lee ventures an answer to those questions by way of a figure in Sophocles - the hero Philoctetes. Gifted by his god with a bow that would always shoot true to the mark and indispensable to his fellow Greeks, he was marked by the same god with an odious wound that made him hateful and hated. Sophocles' powerful insight is that those blessed by the gods and indispensable to men are visited as well with great vulnerability and suffering.

Wagner: The Terrible Man and His Truthful Art traces some of Wagner's extraordinary influence for good and ill on a century of art and politics - on Eliot and Proust as well as on Adolf Hitler - and discusses in detail Wagner's Tannhouser, the work in which the composer first dramatised the Faustian struggle of a creative artist in whom 'two souls dwell.' In the course of this penetrating study, Father Lee argues that Wagner's ambivalent art is indispensable to us, life-enhancing and ultimately healing.

Customer Reviews:

The incurable wound.......2004-04-01

Father M. Owen Lee, who is known for his erudite commentaries on Metropolitan Opera broadcasts has recently published another book about the Wagner's Ring Cycle, called "Athena Sings. Wagner and the Greeks." Father Lee is a Classics scholar, so it should be no surprise that the Greeks also inhabit "Wagner: The Terrible Man and His Truthful Art." One of the chief characters that Wagner is compared to in this slender book is Philoctetes, who was given a great gift by the god Apollo, but was also maimed with an incurable wound.

The three essays that make up this book were written to be given during the 1998 Larkin-Stuart lectures at the University of Toronto. These lectures are devoted to religious and ethical concerns, and Father Lee took the opportunity to examine the relationship of the artist, Wagner to his art.

The first lecture, "Wagner and the Wound That Would Not Heal" tells the story of Philoctetes, who was shunned by his fellow soldiers because of his unhealing wound. Finally, they exiled him on an island on their way to conquer Troy. In their tenth year of war, after the death of Achilles, the Greeks heard a prophecy "that the city would never be taken unless the wounded Philoctetes was brought to Troy with his bow (the gift from Apollo)." The Greeks sailed back to the island where they had abandoned Philoctetes and persuade the wounded, bitter man to use his gift to help them.

Father Owen is not a Wagner apologist, but he asks us to recognize our debt to the "hateful, wounded man [we] are in need of"---he whose music can penetrate deeply into our psyche and bring us, if not peace, then at least self-knowledge.

The second lecture, "Wagner's Influence: The First Hundred Years" discusses the effect that Wagner exercised, for good and ill, on music, art, literature, politics, and psychology. The author quotes philosopher Bryan Magee as being able to say: "Wagner has had a greater influence than any other single artist on the culture of our age."

Of course, the worm at the core of this lecture is Wagner's "unquestioned influence on Adolf Hitler." There are still people who won't listen to Wagner's music, and Father Lee acknowledges this artist's blatant anti-Semitism: "He probably wreaked more havoc on himself with his essay 'Judaism in Music' than with anything else he wrote." A hundred years later, Goebbels was able to use it as vicious propaganda.

Can we acknowledge this hateful, wounded man and still be pierced by the beauty of his music? The author goes on to quote Leonard Bernstein's article in the 'New York Times,' entitled "Wagner's Music isn't Racist:"

"...And if Wagner wrote great music, as I think he did, why should we not embrace it fully and be nourished by it?"

The third and last lecture that completes this book is entitled, "You Use Works of Art to See Your Soul." Father Owen Lee concentrates on Wagner's early opera, "Tannhäuser" to prove his point, with help from authors such as Baudelaire and Goethe. He is even tempted to wonder if Wagner had Martin Luther in mind when he created his tormented young hero, "who was gifted in song, clashed with the Pope, sought refuge in the Wartburg, defied the society he knew, and profoundly changed it."

Or perhaps, Wagner was thinking of Wagner.

These essays have convinced this reviewer at least, that a seriously flawed human being can produce indispensable, undying, truthful art.

arguably the most information in the least time.......2000-08-07

Although this book consists of merely three lectures, and can be finished off in about 2 or 3 hours without difficulty, it has as much fresh insight as many other titles that take much longer to study. The first lecture exploring the influence of classic Greek mythology and cultural recognition through artistic expression - ie roughly how the Greek society established itself through artistic endeavour - gives the reader a pretty clear idea what Wagner was trying to accomplish for Germany through his music dramas, and also confirms a pretty outlandish level of self-confidence to even make such an attempt. The second lecture has some material which has already been covered in other books - notably Aspects of Wagner by Magee - but is still interesting. The final lecture with a detailed study of Tannhauser is excellent, the most interesting commentary on this opera I have read to date. The choice of Wassily Kandinsky's Die Nacht, inspired by Act II of Tristan und Isolde, for the front cover was very appropriate. Strongly recommended.

Yet another great book from M. Owen Lee!.......2000-07-03

In this book, M. Owen Lee grapples with the issue of whether we can (and should) enjoy Wagner's art, in the knowledge of Wagner's notorious flaws (such as his fiery anti-semitism, etc.) Drawing from classical Greek mythology, Mr. Lee discusses how it is common for great artists to have flawed personal lives, and that the value of the artwork should therefore be judged independently of its creator. Indeed, the artist creates his art as an act of self-healing. He therefore encourages the enjoyment of the music of Richard Wagner. (Yep, the Wagnerholics of the world can now listen without guilt. :-)

A lot of the material is taken from the book, "Aspects of Wagner", which M. Owen Lee acknowledges as a source. Since I had read these books back-to-back, the repetition of material was easy to see.

There is also a discussion of the opera "Tannhauser", which is discussed in about the same level of detail as his commentaries on the Ring.

THE TRUTHFUL ART OF M OWEN LEE.......2000-04-04

M. Owen Lee is perhaps best known to opera lovers through his appearances on the Texaco Opera broadcasts, some of which have formed the core of two of his previous books. In his latest book, Father Lee demonstrates the personally committed criticism which is characteristic of his radio lectures. This is no mere apologia for Wagner. The author is painfully aware of Wagner's human failings, not merely the oft-discussed anti-Semitism, and he is troubled by the fact that the music of such a monster could move him so deeply. This book gives us a wonderful insight into the author's soul as he grapples with this question. I especially enjoyed the discussion of "Tannheuser" in the final chapter. (A few years ago I wrote to him about his love of Wagner, and he cared enough to write me a detailed letter in response--another sign of his genuine commitment to the subject). This book tells us not only about Wagner but also about the author himself, who has a unique capability of engaging the reader in a genuine dialogue.

Martin Liebscher: A Man With Opportunities

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Martin Liebscher: A Man With Opportunities
Thomas Wagner , and Martin Liebscher
Manufacturer: Walther Konig
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Collections, Catalogues & Exhibitions | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Artists, A-Z | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 3865601944
Release Date: 2007-07-01

Book Description

At 27 inches wide and seven inches tall, this leporello-folded artist's book presents panoramic photographs in which Martin Liebscher plays all the rolls, sometimes popping up in one picture as many as 500 times--on a seemingly crowded beach, in a hectic stock exchange or at a campground.

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WAGNER AS A MAN & ARTIST
NEWMAN
Manufacturer: GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000UJFIM6

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Wagner as Man & Artist
Ernest Newman
Manufacturer: Garden City Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000PRO5PY

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Wagner as man & artist
Ernest Newman
Manufacturer: Tudor Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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Wagner: As Artist and Man
Wagner: As Artist and Man
Interesting portrait of a flawed genius

Wagner As Man and Artist
Ernest Newman
Manufacturer: Peter Smith Publisher Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0844626538

Customer Reviews:

Wagner: As Artist and Man.......2002-12-16

The greatest of operatic composers has been dead for over fifty years; today there are many more thousands than ever before to whom the immortal works of Wilhelm Richard Wagner bring their most profound musical enjoyment. But the glorious music of such operas as Tannhauser, Lohengrin, Tristan and Isolde, and the Ring cycle is by no means Wagner's only legacy to posterity. The great composer was anxious to leave the world a true portrait of himself; he fully realized that he was a man of amazing ability; he knew that the story of his romantic life would be a subject of endless discussion and would hold the engrossed attention of all those who longed to gain the fullest understanding and enjoyment of his music.

Ernest Newman of the London Times, the most influential music critic on either side of the Atlantic and the author of many widely read books, among them THE STORIES OF THE GREAT OPERAS AND THEIR COMPOSERS, has made an exhaustive study of the vast mass of original Wagnerian manterial and from it he has written this invaluable study of the man and the artist. It is a story of overwhelming ambition, a story lit with the love of devoted women to whose sympathy their hero was ever susceptible, a story of artistic triumphs, financial failure, and personal passion.

A knowledge of Mr. Newman's book will enable you to appreciate, as never before, what lay behind the enduring beauty of Wagner's superlative music -- music which in its passages of turbulent majesty as well as in those of uplifted flight of soul reflects the proud, indomitable spirit of the unbridled genius who composed it.

Wagner: As Artist and Man.......2002-12-16

Interesting portrait of a flawed genius.......2001-01-10

Richard Wagner is an important figure for a number of reasons. He is the composer of the Ring Cycle of Operas, Tristun and Isolde and the Maestersingers of Nuremburg. His music at one point was seen as the intellectual pinnacle of Opera. In more recent years his reputation has faded and a good deal of his early stature has been seen as the result of remorseless self promotion.

Wagner is of German origin and worked as a conductor writing in his spare time two operas which were not successful. His first success came with Riezi his third work. He began to estalish impressive credentials with The Flying Dutchman, Tanhauser and Loehengrin.

Wagner had a powerful intellect and was a theatrical innovator. He was the first one to darken the theatre to increase the mystery of the performance. He wrote a large number of essays and academic works which are now unreadable arguing for a new form of art which he described was music drama. Prior to Wagner Operas had been broken into arias, duets, and ensemble pieces. The feel of an Opera was a collection of different tunes. Wagner argued that a Music Drama should flow and he developed the use of musical signatures to represent characters and moods. He also increased he size of the Orchestra and its importance in communicating the message of the Drama.

Wagner as a person was reprehensible. He stole money refused to pay back loans and stole the wife of his greatest disciple. He was also vain, anti Semitic and personally unpleasant. Despite this he has always been seen as one of music's towering figures.

Newman is a disciple of Wagner and he has been seduced by the myth. His book is close to that of adoration rather than a dispassionate account of his life. Never the less it is an interesting work.

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Wagner As Man and Artist

Manufacturer: Vintage Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000I57JLA

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Wagner as Man and Artist

Manufacturer: Jonathan Cape
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Voice | Instruments & Performers | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
General | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0224615866

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Wagner as Man and Artist
Ernest Newman
Manufacturer: Tudor Publsihing Co.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000O6Z5BY

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Wagner: As Man and Artist
Ernest Newman
Manufacturer: Tudor Publishing Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000O6M9N6

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The story of a friendship in dark times.......2005-10-10

Milena Jesenka was an ethically principled Czech journalist who in 1939 was arrested and sent to the Nazi concentration camp at Ravensbruck. There she met Margete Buber- Neumann another political prisoner. They became close friends, and determined to write a book about their experience when the war was over. Three weeks before D- Day Milena died. This book is the story of their friendship and of the life of Milena.
It is a very moving work. And it also has a chapter on the relationship through which Milena became a part of world- literary history, her her relationship to Franz Kafka.

A Tragic and Hunting Story.......2004-02-17

Franz Kafka's great love, Milena Jesensky, was arrested in 1939 and sent to the Nazi concentration camp in Ravensbruck. There she met Margaret Buber-Neumann (author of this book), also a writer. A friendship developed and they made a pact: whoever survived would tell their story. Milena died in the camp three weeks before D-Day.The book is riveting: both in its depicting the pre-war life of Milena's family, her intellectual friends, and her relationship with Kafka as well as the horrors of camp.
It is surprising that nobody made a film about those two remarkable women; I suppose Hollywood can not be bothered; they are too busy planning for the production of something along the lines of "The Rise and Fall of Janet Jackson's Nipple".

Kafka Love and Courage: The Life of Milena Jesenska

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Kafka Love and Courage: The Life of Milena Jesenska
Mary Hockaday
Manufacturer: Overlook TP
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 087951731X

Amazon.com

Best known for her passionate epistolary relationship with Franz Kafka, Czech writer Milena Jesenka (1896-1944) was an important cultural figure in her own right: she was a perceptive journalist who colorfully captured the keyed-up atmosphere of Vienna and her native Prague during the 1920s and '30s; a powerful spokesperson for Czech nationalism; and a fearless antifascist who helped Jews escape from Nazi-occupied Prague. This thoughtful biography restores the strongminded, intelligent Jesenka to her proper stature as a humane voice in the ethically slippery world of Central European politics.

Milena: The Tragic Story of Kafka's Great Love

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when it first came out..
The story of a courageous and noble human being
Historically interesting

Milena: The Tragic Story of Kafka's Great Love
Margarete Buber-Neumann
Manufacturer: Arcade Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1559703903

Customer Reviews:

when it first came out.........2006-03-10

Since the hardback edition of the new translation of Milena was published last year, Margarete Buber-Neumann, friend to the mistress of Kafka for four years at Ravensbruck Concentration Camp, has died. She died old enough to see the collapse of the Stalinist system that imprisoned her in Siberia, old enough to feel the great hopes that the socialism she fought for will now at last sweep through Europe.

Milena Jesenska fought for the cause too, in her writing and through her actions, leading to her arrest and incarceration at Ravensbruck. She initially sought out Greta Buber to hear the truth about Stalin; what developed was a deep and passionate love. Though Buber-Neumann is no great stylist indeed the book at times fails to come alive because of her reverence for Milena this is a profoundly moving memoir, part biography, part autobiography and part love story, even if, as the subject predicted, told by an 'indulgent judge.' For Milena, on her deathbed, commissioned Buber-Neumann to write this book as a document of life in the camps. However, the camp is but the terrifying context for a tale about a beautiful girl who turned the eyes of the Prague Circle in the Twenties with her boyish looks and who began a painful love affair with Franz Kafka and of how she outlived him and of how 'the living fire' as Kafka described her was quenched.

The story of a courageous and noble human being .......2004-12-07

Milena Jesenka is most known to the world through her connection to and correspondance with Kafka. Her friend Margerete Buber- Neumann tells her story with great insight and feeling. She tells especially of Milena, who imprisoned at Ravensbruck was a heroic helper of others there. This story inspires and saddens deeply because it shows the tragic and painful end of a truly noble and courageous human being.

Historically interesting.......2002-07-02

This is a biography of Milena Jesenská, a Czech journalist who was, in a way, a great love of Kafka's. She was an unusual woman for her time. Highly intelligent and with a rebellious streak, she fashioned herself into a journalist and became well-regarded for her literary and political writing. In her 20s she came to know Kafka when she translated his work into Czech. This gave rise to an impassioned correspondence between them, although the connection didn't turn into a real-life love affair, partly because Milena was married, and partly because of Kafka's numerous anxieties and aversions in the male/female domain. Unfortunately, those interested in insights into Kafka will not get many from this book, as he comes and goes quite quickly in the narrative. Rather, the book is a loving tribute to Milena by Margarete Buber-Neumann, with whom she was imprisoned at the women's concentration camp at Ravensbrück. The two had planned to write a book together when they were freed, but Milena died of kidney failure in May 1944, so Margarete chose instead to tell her friend's story.

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Kafka's Milena
Jana Cerna
Manufacturer: Northwestern University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Briefe an Milena
Franz Kafka
Manufacturer: Fischer Bucherei
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000WN5PD2

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Briefe an Milena
Franz Kafka
Manufacturer: Schocken Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000PGDJDY

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Briefe an Milena
KAFKA
Manufacturer: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Perfect Paperback

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Cartas a Milena
Franz Kafka
Manufacturer: Alianza Editorial Sa
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Franz Kafka Letters To Milena
Franz Kafka
Manufacturer: CORGI
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000SEMMWM

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Franz Kafka: Letters to Milena
Franz Kafka
Manufacturer: Schocken Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000X322HI

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