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A fascinating and insightful collection of papers on the strong links between mathematics and culture. The contributions range from cinema and theatre directors to musicians, architects, historians, physicians, graphic designers and writers. The text highlights the cultural and formative character of mathematics, its educational value, and imaginative dimension. These articles are highly interesting, sometimes amusing, and make excellent starting points for researching the strong connection between scientific and literary culture.
This collection of historical research studies covers the evolution of technology as knowledge, the emergence of an autonomous engineering science in the Industrial Age, the idea of scientific managment of production and operation systems, and the interaction between mathematical models and technological concepts. The book is published with the support of the UNESCO Venice Office - Regional Office for Science & Technology in Europe as an activity of the Project: The evolution of events, concepts and models in engineering systems.
An incisive account of how Mussolini pioneered populism in reaction to Hitler's rise--and thereby reinforced his role as a model for later authoritarian leaders On the tenth anniversary of his rise to power in 1932, Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) seemed to many the "good dictator." He was the first totalitarian and the first fascist in modern Europe. But a year later Hitler's entrance onto the political stage signaled a German takeover of the fascist ideology. In this definitive account, eminent historian R.J.B. Bosworth charts Mussolini's leadership in reaction to Hitler. Bosworth shows how Italy's decline in ideological pre-eminence, as well as in military and diplomatic power, led Mussolini to pursue a more populist approach: angry and bellicose words at home, violent aggression abroad, and a more extreme emphasis on charisma. In his embittered efforts to bolster an increasingly hollow and ruthless regime, it was Mussolini, rather than Hitler, who offered the model for all subsequent authoritarians.
General Equilibrium Theory, which became the dominating paradigm after the Second World War, is founded on the postulated existence, uniqueness, and stability of equilibrium in economic processes. Since then, the concept has come under sustained attack from all points of the heterodox compass, from Austrian economists to Marxists. Partly in response to these pressures, mainstream economics has changed and moved away from the rigid framework of GET. Nonetheless, economists are continually arguing in terms of equilibrium and the existence of a variety of equilibrium concepts continues to stir controversy. The contributions in this book, which include articles from Tony Lawson, Ivor Grattan-Guinness and Roger Backhouse, highlight current notions of equilibrium in economics and provide a guide to understanding the links between economic theory and economic reality.
An examination of the role of history and memory is vital in order to better understand why the grand design of a United Europe--with a common foreign policy and market yet enough diversity to allow for cultural and social differences--was overwhelmingly turned down by its citizens. The authors argue that this rejection of the European constitution was to a certain extent a challenge to the current historical grounding used for further integration and further demonstrates the lack of understanding by European bureaucrats of the historical complexity and divisiveness of Europe's past. A critical European history is therefore urgently needed to confront and re-imagine Europe, not as a harmonious continent but as the outcome of violent and bloody conflicts, both within Europe as well as with its Others. As the authors show, these dark shadows of Europe's past must be integrated, and the fact that memories of Europe are contested must be accepted if any new attempts at a United Europe are to be successful.
DIVDiscusses the history of 20th century economics, and how it has become dominated by mathematical approaches./div
The HOPE Supplement contains the proceedings of the History of Political Economy Conference held at Duke in April, 1996. The conference and the volume are devoted to the history of economic thought of recent, on-going economics. Traditionally, historian
Mathematical correspondence offers a rich heritage for the history of mathematics and science, as well as cultural history and other areas. It naturally covers a vast range of topics, and not only of a scientific nature; it includes letters between mathematicians, but also between mathematicians and politicians, publishers, and men or women of culture. Wallis, Leibniz, the Bernoullis, D'Alembert, Condorcet, Lagrange, Gauss, Hermite, Betti, Cremona, Poincaré and van der Waerden are undoubtedly authors of great interest and their letters are valuable documents, but the correspondence of less well-known authors, too, can often make an equally important contribution to our understanding of deve...
Who was Nicolas Rashevsky? To answer that question, this book draws on Rashevsky’s unexplored personal archival papers and shares interviews with his family, students and friends, as well as discussions with biologists and mathematical biologists, to flesh out and complete the picture. “Most modern-day biologists have never heard of Rashevsky. Why?” In what constitutes the first detailed biography of theoretical physicist Nicolas Rashevsky (1899-1972), spanning key aspects of his long scientific career, the book captures Rashevsky’s ways of thinking about the place mathematical biology should have in biology and his personal struggle for the acceptance of his views. It brings to ligh...