DOCSLIB.ORG

Once a Caian 9-20 FINAL.Pdf

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Once a Caian 9-20 FINAL.Pdf ISSUE 20 MICHAELMAS 2020 GONVILLE & CAIUS COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE Pandemics past and present Affordable ventilators for Africa The Caian behind Private Eye ’s Nooks and Corners Fellows win Wolfson History Prize and the Copley Medal A g n e t From the Director of Development t a L a z a r u s I was excited and delighted to join Caius in January this year, and immediately set about meeting Caians. Many of the 2 019/20 events and reunions had been cancelled because of the kitchen refurbishment, so I particularly looked forward to our US visit, the May Week Party and the September Annual Gathering. All those occasions would have given me chances to meet and thank you, our loyal supporters. Your generosity has been vital for the College and will continue to be so in the challenging years that lie ahead. As I write this, 6 months into the pandemic, I feel sad that the computer screen has been my closest friend for too long now. Like you, I am itching to see life return to normal, to plan for the future and celebrate all that is so special about you Caians and this College. The new kitchens should be ready for action by early 20 21 and in a feat of optimism we are publishing the events calendar on the back cover. It is correct as we go to press but may change, so please check the website. You will notice a few changes in the team when you get in touch and when you next visit Caius. Eva Dangerfield, Sam Cooper, Felipe Fazenda and Tristan Selden ( 2015) are still here, joined this summer by Guy Lawrenson as the Deputy Director, Catherine Quinn as the Senior Development Officer and Callia Kirkham as the Alumni Assistant. They will all be pleased to hear from you at any time. This twentieth issue of Once a Caian… is our promise to you, Caians in the UK and all over the world, that we are as determined as ever to stay in close contact with you, whatever pandemics and other challenges may get in our way. Membership of the Caius family is for life: this is your College and you will always be welcome here. You are valued members of this very special academic community and I cannot wait to get to know you all. Dr Maša Amatt (2 019) Director of Development and Fellow “Your gift to Caius also counts towards the Dear Worl d... Yours, Cambridge Campaign” ...Always a Caian 1 Conten ts M a l c o l m C S m i t h ( 1 9 4 9 6 12 0 ) A M g a n l c e o t t l m a L C a z S a m r u i s t h ( 1 9 14 9 18 34 0 ) 2 Giving Back – introducing the College’s new Director of Development, Dr Maša Amatt (2 019) What is the next line of numbers? 4 Caius Locked Down – by the Senior Tutor, Dr Andrew Spencer (2 019) This baffled one of the 6 Forged in the Fire – an interview with the Senior Bursar, Robert Gardiner (2 018) world’s most brilliant mathematicians (see 8 Clean Capitalism – a profile of Miguel Nogales (199 3), Co-CIO, Generation Investment Management Polymath p .12) when he first came across 10 Sharing our Blessings – Elizabeth Virgo (2 017) on her attachment to Caius House it, but no special 12 Polymath – a memoir of Professor John Horton Conway (195 6) mathematical knowledge or skills 14 Rapid Response – low-cost ventilators – Professor Rob Miller (198 3) and Professor Axel Zeitler (2005) are required, just common sense. 16 Making History – interview with Churchill’s biographer, Andrew Roberts (198 3) Try to solve it 18 Planet Ocean – new books by Professor David Abulafia (197 4) and Professor Sujit Sivasundaram (2002) before turning to p.35 for 20 Nooks & Corners – Private Eye’s Piloti, Gavin Stamp (196 8) remembered by Dr John Casey (196 4) the solution. 22 Not Afraid of The Dark – adventures in the Canadian Arctic – Joanne Rowe (198 7) 24 Weathering the Storm – the importance of benefaction, past, present and future 26 Thanks to our Benefactors 34 CaiNotes 36 Grim Visitations – Previous pandemics at Caius – researched by Michael Prichard (195 0) Cover photos by Malcolm C Smith (199 0), Siobhan Roberts, Judith Croasdell and Dan White 2 Once a Caian... enerosity is infectious. Giving Cambridge for the past fourteen years. She is ‘Something useful’ turned out to be is said to be better than delighted to have taken the reins at what working as an interpreter (Brownie point for receiving, and it’s natural, modesty will not prevent us calling the Maša’s parents!), first for the UN Human after receiving a gift, to want leading Oxbridge college in fundraising. Rights Commission, and then for the War to make a gift, in turn, to Maša and her sister Iva were born and Crimes Tribunal. As well as translating Gsomeone else. In that way, good deeds go brought up in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. interviews with victims of war crimes, she right around the world. She enrolled at Zagreb University to study used her archaeological skills in the Caian benefactors often tell us how Archaeology and German – Archaeology gruesome task of exhuming bodies from a happy they are, when their gifts are matched because it was her passion, German because mass grave. by others, or when their donations inspire her parents, both linguists, felt a second The Croatian War of Independence friends to even greater generosity. For all of language would help her to earn a living: (1991-1995) and its aftermath meant that it the past 672 years, this College has owed its ‘After the first year I was reaffirmed in my was almost eight years before Maša could go very existence to its benefactors – and that thinking, that spending four years learning back to finish her degree. After graduation, a is unlikely to change, any time soon. For our various exceptions to German grammar friend with tenure at Cambridge invited her current students, Caius covers nearly half of wasn't going to be time well spent. So I to help him on an archaeological project and the costs of their education, meals and quickly dropped German and carried on with then suggested she should do a Master’s accommodation, out of its Endowment. Archaeology on its own. While I was degree here. Our new Director of Development, Dr studying, the political situation in the ‘By the time I got my act together, the Maša Amatt, completed both of her country started unravelling itself, and in my application deadlines were coming thick and Cambridge degrees, a Master’s and a PhD in second year, the war broke out. That put a fast. There were very few sources of funding Archaeology, thanks to the kindness of stop to anything remotely academic I was I could apply for, and as an overseas student, strangers. Remembering how an overseas doing at the time. You know, the lectures I would be paying astronomical fees. I could studentship and a timely research grant pretty much stopped, the country stopped never have paid for myself. So, when I was opened new opportunities for her, Maša has functioning, and I felt I wanted to get trying to work out which college to put on been immersed in educational fundraising in involved and do something useful.’ my list, I actually put only one, Peterhouse, Maša with much-missed Maggie Maša at her PhD graduation with her parents, Dunja and Oliver Mlakar, and her husband, Chris Amatt because it was the only one that was offering financial support. And it was specifically a studentship for overseas students coming to do one-year Master’s courses. Perfect. I applied for it and I got it. ‘I arrived in Cambridge on a very wet early October day in 1998. I hated it, the first term. Just everything was wrong. I really didn’t want to stay. Then I went home for Christmas; I couldn’t wait to get home. And Giving then I just couldn’t wait to get back to Cambridge. Whilst I was at home with nothing to do, I was looking around at a country that was totally ravaged by the war. There was very little to do, the prospects were really poor, the country was embroiled in this nationalistic narrative, and politics was in everything. Back ‘I just thought, no, no, no, I don’t think I ...Always a Caian 3 Maša and her sister Iva enjoying Cambridge Maša and Chris Maša with her favourite Peterhouse crew, competing in the 2001 Fairbairns Cup can cope with this. I’d like to go back and an archaeological unit really dive into that archaeology I always attached to your loved doing – and rowing. So I came back – local council, which is and I loved the rest of my time here. As the very interesting work. Easter Term approached, I thought I’d like a You are really at the little bit more of this so I applied to do a coalface all the time. PhD. I didn’t get funding straight away and The other stream is had to take a year out. I went back home academia – with Mouse and Pebbles and worked, to save some money and then very little in wondering why Maša’s I came back in 2000 to do the PhD. And I’m between. And, for an working late again still here.’ academic job, you have Left: Loxley looking cute Maša’s PhD was on animal bone as a raw to be prepared to travel material, in Paleolithic and Mesolithic the world.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The 'Crisis of Noosphere'
    The ‘crisis of noosphere’ as a limiting factor to achieve the point of technological singularity Rafael Lahoz-Beltra Department of Applied Mathematics (Biomathematics). Faculty of Biological Sciences. Complutense University of Madrid. 28040 Madrid, Spain. [email protected] 1. Introduction One of the most significant developments in the history of human being is the invention of a way of keeping records of human knowledge, thoughts and ideas. The storage of knowledge is a sign of civilization, which has its origins in ancient visual languages e.g. in the cuneiform scripts and hieroglyphs until the achievement of phonetic languages with the invention of Gutenberg press. In 1926, the work of several thinkers such as Edouard Le Roy, Vladimir Ver- nadsky and Teilhard de Chardin led to the concept of noosphere, thus the idea that human cognition and knowledge transforms the biosphere coming to be something like the planet’s thinking layer. At present, is commonly accepted by some thinkers that the Internet is the medium that brings life to noosphere. Hereinafter, this essay will assume that the words Internet and noosphere refer to the same concept, analogy which will be justified later. 2 In 2005 Ray Kurzweil published the book The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology predicting an exponential increase of computers and also an exponential progress in different disciplines such as genetics, nanotechnology, robotics and artificial intelligence. The exponential evolution of these technologies is what is called Kurzweil’s “Law of Accelerating Returns”. The result of this rapid progress will lead to human beings what is known as tech- nological singularity.
    [Show full text]
  • Elementary Functions: Towards Automatically Generated, Efficient
    Elementary functions : towards automatically generated, efficient, and vectorizable implementations Hugues De Lassus Saint-Genies To cite this version: Hugues De Lassus Saint-Genies. Elementary functions : towards automatically generated, efficient, and vectorizable implementations. Other [cs.OH]. Université de Perpignan, 2018. English. NNT : 2018PERP0010. tel-01841424 HAL Id: tel-01841424 https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01841424 Submitted on 17 Jul 2018 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Délivré par l’Université de Perpignan Via Domitia Préparée au sein de l’école doctorale 305 – Énergie et Environnement Et de l’unité de recherche DALI – LIRMM – CNRS UMR 5506 Spécialité: Informatique Présentée par Hugues de Lassus Saint-Geniès [email protected] Elementary functions: towards automatically generated, efficient, and vectorizable implementations Version soumise aux rapporteurs. Jury composé de : M. Florent de Dinechin Pr. INSA Lyon Rapporteur Mme Fabienne Jézéquel MC, HDR UParis 2 Rapporteur M. Marc Daumas Pr. UPVD Examinateur M. Lionel Lacassagne Pr. UParis 6 Examinateur M. Daniel Menard Pr. INSA Rennes Examinateur M. Éric Petit Ph.D. Intel Examinateur M. David Defour MC, HDR UPVD Directeur M. Guillaume Revy MC UPVD Codirecteur À la mémoire de ma grand-mère Françoise Lapergue et de Jos Perrot, marin-pêcheur bigouden.
    [Show full text]
  • ~Umbers the BOO K O F Umbers
    TH E BOOK OF ~umbers THE BOO K o F umbers John H. Conway • Richard K. Guy c COPERNICUS AN IMPRINT OF SPRINGER-VERLAG © 1996 Springer-Verlag New York, Inc. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1996 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a re­ trieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published in the United States by Copernicus, an imprint of Springer-Verlag New York, Inc. Copernicus Springer-Verlag New York, Inc. 175 Fifth Avenue New York, NY lOOlO Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Conway, John Horton. The book of numbers / John Horton Conway, Richard K. Guy. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-1-4612-8488-8 e-ISBN-13: 978-1-4612-4072-3 DOl: 10.l007/978-1-4612-4072-3 1. Number theory-Popular works. I. Guy, Richard K. II. Title. QA241.C6897 1995 512'.7-dc20 95-32588 Manufactured in the United States of America. Printed on acid-free paper. 9 8 765 4 Preface he Book ofNumbers seems an obvious choice for our title, since T its undoubted success can be followed by Deuteronomy,Joshua, and so on; indeed the only risk is that there may be a demand for the earlier books in the series. More seriously, our aim is to bring to the inquisitive reader without particular mathematical background an ex­ planation of the multitudinous ways in which the word "number" is used.
    [Show full text]
  • Oriel College Record
    Oriel College Record 2020 Oriel College Record 2020 A portrait of Saint John Henry Newman by Walter William Ouless Contents COLLEGE RECORD FEATURES The Provost, Fellows, Lecturers 6 Commemoration of Benefactors, Provost’s Notes 13 Sermon preached by the Treasurer 86 Treasurer’s Notes 19 The Canonisation of Chaplain’s Notes 22 John Henry Newman 90 Chapel Services 24 ‘Observing Narrowly’ – Preachers at Evensong 25 The Eighteenth Century World Development Director’s Notes 27 of Revd Gilbert White 92 Junior Common Room 28 How Does a Historian Start Middle Common Room 30 a New Book? She Goes Cycling! 95 New Members 2019-2020 32 Eugene Lee-Hamilton Prize 2020 100 Academic Record 2019-2020 40 Degrees and Examination Results 40 BOOK REVIEWS Awards and Prizes 48 Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra, Leibniz: Graduate Scholars 48 Discourse on Metaphysics 104 Sports and Other Achievements 49 Robert Wainwright, Early Reformation College Library 51 Covenant Theology: English Outreach 53 Reception of Swiss Reformed Oriel Alumni Advisory Committee 55 Thought, 1520-1555 106 CLUBS, SOCIETIES NEWS AND ACTIVITIES Honours and Awards 110 Chapel Music 60 Fellows’ and Lecturers’ News 111 College Sports 63 Orielenses’ News 114 Tortoise Club 78 Obituaries 116 Oriel Women’s Network 80 Other Deaths notified since Oriel Alumni Golf 82 August 2019 135 DONORS TO ORIEL Provost’s Court 138 Raleigh Society 138 1326 Society 141 Tortoise Club Donors 143 Donors to Oriel During the Year 145 Diary 154 Notes 156 College Record 6 Oriel College Record 2020 VISITOR Her Majesty the Queen
    [Show full text]
  • Mitigating Javascript's Overhead with Webassembly
    Samuli Ylenius Mitigating JavaScript’s overhead with WebAssembly Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences M. Sc. thesis March 2020 ABSTRACT Samuli Ylenius: Mitigating JavaScript’s overhead with WebAssembly M. Sc. thesis Tampere University Master’s Degree Programme in Software Development March 2020 The web and web development have evolved considerably during its short history. As a result, complex applications aren’t limited to desktop applications anymore, but many of them have found themselves in the web. While JavaScript can meet the requirements of most web applications, its performance has been deemed to be inconsistent in applications that require top performance. There have been multiple attempts to bring native speed to the web, and the most recent promising one has been the open standard, WebAssembly. In this thesis, the target was to examine WebAssembly, its design, features, background, relationship with JavaScript, and evaluate the current status of Web- Assembly, and its future. Furthermore, to evaluate the overhead differences between JavaScript and WebAssembly, a Game of Life sample application was implemented in three splits, fully in JavaScript, mix of JavaScript and WebAssembly, and fully in WebAssembly. This allowed to not only compare the performance differences between JavaScript and WebAssembly but also evaluate the performance differences between different implementation splits. Based on the results, WebAssembly came ahead of JavaScript especially in terms of pure execution times, although, similar benefits were gained from asm.js, a predecessor to WebAssembly. However, WebAssembly outperformed asm.js in size and load times. In addition, there was minimal additional benefit from doing a WebAssembly-only implementation, as just porting bottleneck functions from JavaScript to WebAssembly had similar performance benefits.
    [Show full text]
  • John Horton Conway
    Obituary John Horton Conway (1937–2020) Playful master of games who transformed mathematics. ohn Horton Conway was one of the Monstrous Moonshine conjectures. These, most versatile mathematicians of the for the first time, seriously connected finite past century, who made influential con- symmetry groups to analysis — and thus dis- tributions to group theory, analysis, crete maths to non-discrete maths. Today, topology, number theory, geometry, the Moonshine conjectures play a key part Jalgebra and combinatorial game theory. His in physics — including in the understanding deep yet accessible work, larger-than-life of black holes in string theory — inspiring a personality, quirky sense of humour and wave of further such discoveries connecting ability to talk about mathematics with any and algebra, analysis, physics and beyond. all who would listen made him the centre of Conway’s discovery of a new knot invariant attention and a pop icon everywhere he went, — used to tell different knots apart — called the among mathematicians and amateurs alike. Conway polynomial became an important His lectures about numbers, games, magic, topic of research in topology. In geometry, he knots, rainbows, tilings, free will and more made key discoveries in the study of symme- captured the public’s imagination. tries, sphere packings, lattices, polyhedra and Conway, who died at the age of 82 from tilings, including properties of quasi-periodic complications related to COVID-19, was a tilings as developed by Roger Penrose. lover of games of all kinds. He spent hours In algebra, Conway discovered another in the common rooms of the University of important system of numbers, the icosians, Cambridge, UK, and Princeton University with his long-time collaborator Neil Sloane.
    [Show full text]
  • The Book of Numbers
    springer.com Mathematics : Number Theory Conway, John H., Guy, Richard The Book of Numbers Journey through the world of numbers with the foremost authorities and writers in the field. John Horton Conway and Richard K. Guy are two of the most accomplished, creative, and engaging number theorists any mathematically minded reader could hope to encounter. In this book, Conway and Guy lead the reader on an imaginative, often astonishing tour of the landscape of numbers. The Book of Numbers is just that - an engagingly written, heavily illustrated introduction to the fascinating, sometimes surprising properties of numbers and number patterns. The book opens up a world of topics, theories, and applications, exploring intriguing aspects of real numbers, systems, arrays and sequences, and much more. Readers will be able to use figures to figure out figures, rub elbows with famous families of numbers, prove the primacy of primes, fathom the fruitfulness of fractions, imagine imaginary numbers, investigate the infinite and infinitesimal and more. Order online at springer.com/booksellers Copernicus Springer Nature Customer Service Center LLC 1996, IX, 310 p. 233 Spring Street 1st New York, NY 10013 edition USA T: +1-800-SPRINGER NATURE (777-4643) or 212-460-1500 Printed book [email protected] Hardcover Printed book Hardcover ISBN 978-0-387-97993-9 $ 49,99 Available Discount group Trade Books (1) Product category Popular science Other renditions Softcover ISBN 978-1-4612-8488-8 Prices and other details are subject to change without notice. All errors and omissions excepted. Americas: Tax will be added where applicable. Canadian residents please add PST, QST or GST.
    [Show full text]
  • Interview with John Horton Conway
    Interview with John Horton Conway Dierk Schleicher his is an edited version of an interview with John Horton Conway conducted in July 2011 at the first International Math- ematical Summer School for Students at Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany, Tand slightly extended afterwards. The interviewer, Dierk Schleicher, professor of mathematics at Jacobs University, served on the organizing com- mittee and the scientific committee for the summer school. The second summer school took place in August 2012 at the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France, and the next one is planned for July 2013, again at Jacobs University. Further information about the summer school is available at http://www.math.jacobs-university.de/ summerschool. John Horton Conway in August 2012 lecturing John H. Conway is one of the preeminent the- on FRACTRAN at Jacobs University Bremen. orists in the study of finite groups and one of the world’s foremost knot theorists. He has written or co-written more than ten books and more than one- received the Pólya Prize of the London Mathemati- hundred thirty journal articles on a wide variety cal Society and the Frederic Esser Nemmers Prize of mathematical subjects. He has done important in Mathematics of Northwestern University. work in number theory, game theory, coding the- Schleicher: John Conway, welcome to the Interna- ory, tiling, and the creation of new number systems, tional Mathematical Summer School for Students including the “surreal numbers”. He is also widely here at Jacobs University in Bremen. Why did you known as the inventor of the “Game of Life”, a com- accept the invitation to participate? puter simulation of simple cellular “life” governed Conway: I like teaching, and I like talking to young by simple rules that give rise to complex behavior.
    [Show full text]
  • The Travel Writing and Narrative History of William Dalrymple
    Travelling into History: The Travel Writing and Narrative History of William Dalrymple By Rebecca Dor gel o BA (Hons) Tas MA Tas Submitted in fulfilment of the r equi r ements for the Degr ee of Doctor of Philosophy University of Tasmani a July 2011 ii Declaration of Originality The thesis contains no material which has been accepted for a degree or diploma by the University or any other institution, except by way of background information and duly acknowledged in the thesis, and to the best of my k now l ed ge and bel i ef no mat er i al pr ev i ousl y publ i shed or w r i tten by another per son except w her e d ue ack now l ed gement i s made in the text of the thesis, nor does the thesis contain any material that infringes copyright. Si gned , Rebecca Dorgelo. 18 July 2011 Authority of Access The thesis may be made available for loan and limited copying in accordance w ith the Copyright Act 1968. Si g n ed , Rebecca Dorgelo. 18 July 2011 iii iv Abstract: “Travelling into History: The Travel Writing and N arrative History of William Dalrymple” Doctor of Philosophy. William Dalrymple is a popular, bestselling author, initially known for his travel writing and subsequently for his popular narrative histories. He is also a prolific journalist and reviewer. His major publications include: In Xanadu: A Quest (1990), City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi (1993), Fr om t he H ol y M ount ai n: A Jour ney i n t he Shadow of Byzant i um (1997), T he Age of Kali: Indian Travels & Encounters (1998), White M ughals: Lov e & Bet r ay al i n Ei ght een t h-Century India (2002), The Last M ughal : The Fal l of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857 (2006), and N i n e L i v es: I n Sear ch of t he Sacr ed i n M odern India (2009).
    [Show full text]
  • An Aperiodic Convex Space-Filler Is Discovered
    \ olume IJ. :"umller 6 The Ne\\ stetter of the :\Iathematical Association of America Den'mller )9l)J An Aperiodic Convex Space-filler is Discovered Earlier this year, Princeton mathematician Conway's discovery was announced at the John Horton Conway discovered a convex Regional Geometry Institute held this past polyhedron that will fill space, but only summer at Smith College. There, the par­ aperiodically. The space-filler is a biprism, ticipants(over 100,includingundergraduate that is, two slant triangular prisms fused REU participants, graduate students, high together (its faces are four congruent tri­ school teachers, and research mathemati­ angles and four congruentparallelograms). ~ cians) assembled cardboard models of the Several years ago, Peter Schmitt, at the ~ biprism and stacked them to witness the University of Vienna, described a non-con- § aperiodic space-filling. One participant, vex aperiodic space-filler, and Conway's ~ Ludwig Danzer, of the University of biprism fills space in a similar manner. First, ~ Dortmund, noted that Conway's tiling was ~ copies of the tile fill a layer (and in this single g not face-to-face, and quickly devised an layer, the tiling is periodic), and layers are ~ "improved" version. The parallelogram stacked to fill space. However, adjacentlay- E: faces ofDanzer's biprismare inscribedwith ers must be rotated with respect to each An example ofConway s tiling built at the Regional congruent triangles (which are considered other by a fixed irrational angle, thereby Geometry Institute at Smith College as faces) and when his polyhedronis stacked ensuring that the tiling is aperiodic. in the same manner as Conway's, the tiling is aperiodic and also face-to-face.
    [Show full text]
  • Winner of the Wolfson History Prize 2017 Announced
    PRESS RELEASE For immediate release Monday 15 May 2017 WINNER OF THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE 2017 ANNOUNCED The winner of this year’s Wolfson History Prize, awarded for excellence in accessible and scholarly history, has been announced as Dr Christopher de Hamel for his book Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts. De Hamel, who receives the £40,000 prize, is Fellow and former librarian of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He was one of six authors shortlisted for the Prize earlier this year. Awarded annually by the Wolfson Foundation for over forty years, the Wolfson History Prize has become synonymous with celebrating outstanding history. Established in 1972, it has awarded more than £1.1 million in recognition of the best historical writing being produced in the UK, reflecting qualities of both readability and excellence in writing and research. Sir David Cannadine, Chair of the Prize Judges, said: “Christopher de Hamel's outstanding and original book pushes the boundaries of what it is and what it means to write history. By framing each manuscript of which he writes as the story of his own personal encounter with it, he leads the reader on many unforgettable journeys of discovery and learning. Deeply imaginative, beautifully written, and unfailingly humane, Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts distils a lifelong love of these astonishing historical treasures, which the author brings so vividly to life. It is a masterpiece.” About the Prize-winning book: Part travel book, part detective story, part conversation with the reader, Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts conveys the fascination and excitement of encountering some of the greatest works of art in our culture which, in the originals, are to most people completely inaccessible.
    [Show full text]
  • World History
    2012 Nw Boks n World History Harvard University Press New DENG XIAOPING AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF CHINA EZRA F. VOGEL ★ A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice ★ A Washington Post Best Book of the Year ★ An Economist Best Book of the Year ★ A Wall Street Journal Book of the Year No one in the twentieth century had a greater impact on world history than Deng Xiaoping. And no scholar is better qualified than Ezra Vogel to disentangle the contradictions embodied in the life and legacy of China’s boldest strategist—the pragmatic, disciplined force behind China’s radical economic, technological, and social transformation. “Vogel has gone to enormous lengths to document his subject…Vogel’s painstaking research provides plenty of fascinating detail…On the ways through which Deng set about the enormous task of rebuild - ing the gutted economy, shattered by decades of turmoil under Mao Zedong, Vogel is exhaustive.” —SIMON ELEGANT, TIME “Deng led a long and remarkable life, packed with drama and global significance, one that deserves to be dissected in detail…There’s no question that Vogel has gone farther than anyone else to date in telling Deng’s story. For that he is to be applauded; there is a whole hoard of valuable material here that we probably would not have gained otherwise.” —CHRISTIAN CARYL, FOREIGN POLICY “Ezra Vogel’s encyclopedic Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China is the most exhaustive English retelling of Deng’s life. Vogel…seems to have interviewed or found the memoirs of nearly every person who spoke with Deng, and has painstakingly re-created a detailed and intimate chronology of Deng’s roller-coaster career.” —JOSHUA KURLANTZICK, THE NATION “From arguably the most important scholar of East Asia, this is an important book on the force behind China’s transformation in the late twentieth century, whose full fruits are visible only today.
    [Show full text]