The idea of virtual realities has a long and complex historical trajectory, spanning from Plato's concept of the cave and the simulacrum, to artistic styles such as Trompe L'oeil, and more recently developments in 3D film, television and gaming. However, this book will pay particular attention to the time between the 1980s to the 1990s when virtual reality and cyberspace were represented, particularly in fiction, as a wondrous technology that enabled transcendence from the limitations of physical embodiment. The purpose of this critical historical analysis of representations of virtual reality is to examine how they might deny, repress or overlook embodied experience. Specifically, the author will contend that embodiment is a fundamental aspect of immersion in virtual reality, rather than something which is to be transcended. In this way, the book aims to challenge distorted ideas about transcendence and productively contribute to debates about embodiment and technology.

One of the greatest challenges for instructors in religious studies is the task of explaining why, in colleges and universities, the truth claims of religions are not accepted or even investigated, but instead a disinterested, secular approach is taken. Most instructors prefer not to address the issue directly, leaving their students to work out for themselves the difference between religious studies and the study of religion. Those who remain confused inevitably submit essays that reveal more about their religious upbringing than their ability to analyze a phenomenon objectively. "A Guide to Writing Academic Essays in Religious Studies" eases the transition for undergraduate students by explaining what they need to know about writing research essays pertaining to religion. Topics include methodological and theoretical presuppositions of religious studies, types of research essays, locating appropriate scholarly literature, developing a thesis, the essentials of essay form and content, quotations, forms of documentation, avoiding plagiarism, gender-inclusive language, layout, style, conciseness, rewriting and proofreading, approaching ancient texts, and how to recognize and avoid bad scholarship. This guide is indispensable for students new to religious studies.

With stunning artwork and detailed analysis, this volume provides a pilot's view of the dramatic clashes between these two legendary fighters, as some of the most gifted and 'big name' aces of World War II went head to head in the skies of North-West Europe. As the Battle of Britain approached its conclusion, two new versions of the famous Spitfire and Messerschmitt Bf 109 arrived on the scene. The RAF could see that the Luftwaffe were stepping down their incursions into British airspace, and went on to the offensive. The Spitfire Mark II, and increasingly the Mark V, would fly over the picturesque English channel in fighter sweeps, or to escort vulnerable Blenheim bombers - waiting for them was the Bf 109F 'Friedrich'. Yet despite the reversal of offensive and defensive dispositions, and despite the Luftwaffe deploying the bulk of their fighter strength to the Eastern Front in 1941, the Jagdflieger were able to inflict severe losses on their RAF counterparts.

This collection of essays by internationally renowned women scholars both contests the notion of fundamentalism and attempts to find places where it might convege with women's roles in the various world's religions. The essayists explore fundamentalism as a system or method of limiting women's religious roles and examine the ways that women embrace certain aspects of fundamentalism. The essays cover Hinduism, Buddhism, Confuciansim, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. The contributors investigate the ways that women "fight back" against fundamentalist conceptions of family, gender roles, doctrinal practices, ritual practices, and God or theistic constructs. The writers reassert and preserve their identities by challenging the static categories of fundamentalism. The essays contain deep and powerful explorations of the intersections of culture, religion, and feminism.

Hawker's charismatic Tempest V entered RAF service just in time to be the most successful counter to the V1 flying bomb assault on southern England in the summer of 1944. With more than 800 of the robot missiles to its credit, Tempest V units then crossed the Channel to lock horns with the best the Luftwaffe had to offer - Fw 190D-9s, Ta 152s, Me 262s and Bf 109G/Ks - achieving an impressive kill/loss ratio in aerial combat. With incredibly detailed aircraft profiles and exciting combat reports this title covers the full history of Tempest squadrons, from their initial design and combat experience in World War 2 through to their post-war role and the eventual decline of this iconic British fighter.

In his new book Doron Mendels addresses the topic of the authority of texts and their transmission, as well as different strategies of narration in ancient texts. Mendels provides extensive treatment of issues such as linearity, emporality and simultaenity of texts, whilst working to examine four core themes. First, the narrator and his strategies in the historiography of the Hellenistic period. Secondly, Jewish Historical thought in the Hellenistic period and beyond. Thirdly, issues of Hellenization in Palestine - power, honour, gifting, etiquette and sovereignty and their presentation in the main narrative of the Hasmonean period. Finally Mendels gives attention to the 'split' in the Jewish diaspora between east and west, as exemplified from a Christian point of view, it is this that unites these themes into a sustained examination of Jewish historical narrative and thought.

At the beginning of the Vietnam War, the Vietnam People's Air Force (VPAF) were equipped with slow, old Korean War generation fighters - a combination of MiG-17s and MiG-19s - types that should have offered little opposition to the cutting-edge fighter-bombers such as the F-4 Phantom II, F-105 Thunderchief and the F-8 Crusader. Yet when the USAF and US Navy unleashed their aircraft on North Vietnam in 1965 the inexperienced pilots of the VPAF were able to shatter the illusion of US air superiority. Taking advantage of their jet's unequalled low-speed maneuverability, small size and powerful cannon armament they were able to take the fight to their missile-guided opponents, with a number of Vietnamese pilots racking up ace scores. Packed with information previously unavailable in the west and only recently released from archives in Vietnam, this is the first major analysis of the exploits of Vietnamese pilots in the David and Goliath contest with the US over the skies of Vietnam.

In 1910 the first aircraft was successfully launched from a small wooden platform on a stationary ship. Just four years later, seaplane-carrying warships were being used to launch the first naval air raids, and by 1918 the first aircraft carrier to feature a full-length flight deck was in service. High quality artwork and historical photographs help author Mark Lardas tell the fascinating story of the pioneering years of naval aviation, covering such historic clashes as the Japanese siege of Tsingtao, the British raid against German Zeppelin bases at Cuxhaven and the Battle of Jutland, which saw the first airplane take part in a naval battle. Through detailed analysis he explores their development from hastily adapted merchant ships to the launch of HMS Argus, the first aircraft carrier to have a full-length flight deck, and shows how they paved the way for the aircraft carriers of the future.

Visual culture has become one of the most dynamic fields of scholarship, a reflection of how the study of human culture increasingly requires distinctively visual ways of thinking and methods of analysis. Bringing together leading international scholars to assess all aspects of visual culture, the Handbook aims to provide a comprehensive and authoritative overview of the subject. The Handbook embraces the extraordinary range of disciplines which now engage in the study of the visual - film and photography, television, fashion, visual arts, digital media, geography, philosophy, architecture, material culture, sociology, cultural studies and art history. Throughout, the Handbook is responsive to the cross-disciplinary nature of many of the key questions raised in visual culture around digitization, globalization, cyberculture, surveillance, spectacle, and the role of art. The Handbook guides readers new to the area, as well as experienced researchers, into the topics, issues and questions that have emerged in the study of visual culture since the start of the new millennium, conveying the boldness, excitement and vitality of the subject.

These inventive and entertaining pieces display the early sparkles of wit and imagination of Jane Austen's mature fiction. Written when she was only in her teens, they are by turns amusing, acerbic and occasionally downright silly. 'Love and Friendship' and 'Lesley Castle' provide parodies of the gentry and the fashionable idea of sensibility of the time. 'A History of England' supplies us with a lively chronicle of English monarchic history. Also included in this collection are 'The Three Sisters', 'Catharine', the series of vignettes known as 'A Collection of Letters' and 'Lady Susan', an epistolary story which was recently adapted for the cinema. Taken together, these pieces display all the wry humour, shrewd observation and satirical insight of Emma or Pride and Prejudice.

In the years after World War II, new guided missile technology offered surface ships the chance to destroy airborne threats from afar, thereby preserving their role in naval warfare. This book examines the technology and combat performance of Britain's guided missile destroyers over half a century. Uniquely among modern destroyers, three of these classes have been tested in battle against the aircraft and missiles of another modern navy - in the Falklands War - as well as being deployed during the Gulf War. Written by an expert on British naval technology, this book assess the changing technology of the Royal Navy's destroyers over half a century, including an examination of the Royal Navy's newest and most capable warship, the Type 45.

Coming back to the "nest" of his family home in Russia after years of fruitless endeavours away from his roots, Lavretsky decides to turn his back on the vacuous salons of Paris and his frivolous and unfaithful wife Varvara Pavlovna. On his return he meets Liza, the daughter of one of his cousins, whom he had known when they were children and who rekindles in him long-smothered feelings of love. News of Varvara's death arrive from France, offering Lavretsky the prospect of a new life, but a cruel twist threatens to shatter his dreams and forces him to re-evaluate his plans. Hailed as a masterpiece of Russian literature, A Nest of the Gentry - Turgenev's most successful and widely read novel, here presented in a new translation by Michael Pursglove - deals with the personal struggles of the individual in a period of turbulent social change.

The career of Mikhail Bulgakov, the author of Master and Margarita - now regarded as one of the masterpieces of twentieth-century literature - was characterized by a constant and largely unsuccessful struggle against state censorship. This suppression did not only apply to his art: in 1926 his personal diary was seized by the authorities. From then on he confined his thoughts to letters to his friends and family, as well as to public figures such as Stalin and his fellow Soviet writer Gorky, while also encouraging his wife Yelena to keep a diary, with many entries influenced or even dictated by him. This ample selection from the diaries and letters of the Bulgakovs, mostly translated for the first time into English, provides an insightful glimpse into a fascinating period of Russian history and literature, telling the tragic tale of the fate of an artist under a totalitarian regime.

In the age of modern warfare the changing landscape of the 21st century battlefield has demanded a transformation within the US Marine Corps Special Operations. Adapting to a huge range of combat environments, an enormous array of specialist uniforms, protective armour and battlefield electronic devices have been developed to facilitate missions in the most extreme conditions. A special forces operator may now have available to him a dozen distinct types of body armour and two dozen different weapons; never before in American military history has so much been given to so few. Authored by J. Kenneth Eward, professor at the American Military University, and illustrated throughout with photographs and meticulous colour plates, this volume offers the first detailed, authoritative study of the characteristics, and performance in the field, of the most modern combat gear and weapons provided for USMC specialist operators to date.

This book is a collection of closely-related yet distinct chapters, each of which presents an account of particular thinkers, themes or debates in their historical context and in the light of today's concerns. The book is divided into three parts: Part One, Bishops and Authority; Part Two, Pluralism, Politics and History; and Part Three, Believing and Discipleship. It presents the fruit of a long period of theological research into different historical periods, but with a distinct focus on theology in the early twentieth century. Although each chapter can be read as history of theology, and each addresses historical debates in their own terms, at the same time each is concerned to relate historical issues to contemporary problems faced by the Anglican Communion and the Church of England today.

"Foundations of Interior Design," 2nd Edition, is a comprehensive introduction to the creative, technical, and business knowledge required by the interior design profession. The book encompasses color theory, design history, architectural elements, finishing touches, trend forecasting, and the basics of running a business, and includes an integrated CD-ROM designed to help students apply what they learn in a hands-on fashion. This thoroughly updated 2nd edition, which addresses contemporary concerns such as sustainability, universal design, and adaptive reuse, is richly illustrated with images that reflect current trends in products and interiors. The book is rooted in a practical approach to creating safe, comfortable, and aesthetically pleasing spaces for residential and contract clients.

While there exist a variety of editions of the New Testament Apocrypha in English, German, French, Spanish, and Italian, the actual Greek texts have remained difficult to access until now. This book brings together these Greek non-canonical Christian texts from the pre-canonical period in an accurate and comprehensive collection. Including over 200 high quality images of the papyri and indicating where they are housed in the world today, this volume provides a highly valuable reference to facilitate the study of these fascinating texts.

Quentin Meillassouxs remarkable debut makes a strikingly original contribution to contemporary French philosophy and is set to have a significant impact on the future of Continental philosophy. Written in a style that marries great clarity of expression with argumentative rigour, After Finitude Provides bold readings of the history of philosophy and sets out a devastating critique of the unavowed fideism at the heart of post-Kantian philosophy.Meillassoux introduces a startlingly novel philosophical alternative to the forced choice between dogmatism and critique. After Finitude proposes a new alliance between philosophy and science and calls for an unequivocal halt to the creeping return of religiosity in contemporary philosophical discourse.The exceptional lucidity and the centrality of argument in Meillassoux;s writing should appeal to Analytic as well as Continental philosophers, while his critique of fideism will be of interest to anyone preoccupied by the relation between philosophy, theology and religion

A subject of particular resonance today when belief - religious and otherwise - can shape the modern world. Complex theories are brought to life by Grayling's skill and accessible style.A book on scepticism from Anthony Grayling is to be greatly valued. Grayling is rare among academic philosophers: he is not only a brilliant thinker, but also has the power to communicate serious ideas to a wide audience.The subject of Scepticism is one of particular interest to people today. It is well known that Grayling reserves particular scepticism for religious statements, but that is only part of this compelling new book. Scepticism as a philosophical term is as old as the Greeks but has more recently been advanced by Montaigne, Descartes and Hume. To these, what little we know that seems certain is based on observation and habit as opposed to any logical or scientific necessity. Thus, sceptical views relate directly to epistemology - the theory of knowledge and what we can know - and, in the modern turbulent world, it is Grayling's contention that these are issues that all contemporary people need to focus on.In seeking understanding of the human condition we need more than just a set of beliefs about it: all belief is irrational. We want to know or garner some kind of proof about the fundamental truths of human existence. This is the crux of the dilemma facing intelligent people today and is greatly illuminated by this book.

This title investigates Vladimir Putin's war for control of Russia's vast oil reserves, in particular Mikhail Khodorkovsky's oil firm, Yukos. "Putin's Oil" investigates the complex world of Kremlin politics, including conspiracies and conspiracy theories, allegations that Roman Abramovitch plotted with Putin to destroy Khodorkovsky, suspicions of betrayal and double agents in the Kremlin and in Yukos, murder charges against Khodorkovsky's partners, and the KGB defector who claims they were carried out by Kremlin agents. After the mysterious death in a helicopter crash of the Englishman who had taken over Yukos, the company's war against the Kremlin is now being waged by a troika of mild mannered Britons, pursued by Interpol arrest warrants and Moscow's fury. Khodorkovsky remains in a penal camp in far Eastern Siberia. Martin Sixsmith, former BBC Moscow Correspondent, has gained unprecedented access to many of the players in the drama. The resulting book is both a thriller and an analysis of the defining moments of Putin's presidency and their ongoing impact in Russian and world politics.

A gratifyingly unsound psychological odyssey . . . Cartwright destabilizes the novel's placid surface with aftershocks of historical tragedies. - The New York Times Book Review Frank McAllister has long since dropped Retief as his middle name, but the legacy of his family's history proves harder to shake. His ancestor Piet Retief, leader of the South African Great Trek, was killed by Zulu king Dingane in the 1838 massacre, along with a hundred men, women, and children. Afrikaner legend paints Retief as a homegrown Moses, bringing his people to the Promised Land. But Frank believes something rotten lies at the core of this family myth. Frank spends his days in his London home with his new partner and her son and the products of his wealth. But the return of his daughter, Lucinda, from rehab in California brings him intense guilt: having sided with him during his divorce from her mother, she crumbled under the weight of the bitter separation. Lucinda has brought home with her a mysterious boy, and they will join the family trip to Frank's beach house in South Africa--not far from the site of the 1838 massacre. In the lulls of their idyllic days, Frank unravels what really happened on that fateful day, and how it may connect to the violence of the apartheid years, and the violence encroaching on them even now. Up Against the Night is an enthralling tale of personal conflict and intrigue, set against the backdrop of South Africa's tangled past and troubled present, and told with tremendous color and insight. Absolutely original and gripping, it is destined to be as influential as JM Coetzee's Disgrace.

The collaboration of the philosopher Gilles Deleuze and the psychoanalyst Felix Guattari has been one of the most profoundly influential partnerships in contemporary thought. 'Anti-Oedipus' is the first part of their masterpiece, 'Capitalism and Schizophrenia'. Ranging widely across the radical tradition of 20th Century thought and culture that preceeded them - from Foucault, Lacan and Jung to Samuel Beckett and Henry Miller - this revolutionary analysis of the intertwining of desire, reality and capitalist society is an essential read for anyone interested in postwar continental thought.

Bird argues that Jesus was attempting to achieve and enact the restoration of Israel, and in continuity with other strands of Jewish belief, Jesus conceived of the restoration of Israel as resulting in the salvation of the gentiles. Jesus' mission was Israel-centric, but he espoused a view of restoration that was indebted to certain strands of Israel's sacred traditions where the gentiles are implicit beneficiaries of Israel's salvation. Since this restoration was already being partially realized in Jesus' ministry, it was becoming possible for gentiles to begin sharing in Israel's salvation in the present. Additionally, Jesus understood himself and his followers to be the new temple and the vanguard of the restored Israel who would appropriate for themselves the role of Israel and the temple in being a light to the nations. Thus, a gentile mission has its germinal roots in the aims and intentions of Jesus and was developed in a transformed situation by adherents of the early Christian movement.

Jurgen Habermas is one of the most important contemporary philosophers and theorists of society. The author of over forty works, including the seminal Theory of Communicative Action, his work has ranged across critical theory, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, the philosophy of science, citizenship and democracy, religion and psychoanalysis, forging new paradigms and engaging with other key thinkers. All students and teachers of contemporary Continental thought need to understand Habermas's major contributions to philosophy and critical theory. Habermas: A Guide for the Perplexed is the ideal starting point for anyone studying Habermas, and an invaluable companion text to any course of study that includes his work. It follows Habermas's critical and philosophical project through all four stages of its development - the philosophical anthropological; the historical materialist; the linguistic turn; deliberative democracy and the rule of law - building up a complete overview of his work, and offering close and incisive analysis throughout. All Habermas's major publications, including The Theory of Communicative Action, are covered in detail. The book concludes with an assessment of Habermas's contribution to philosophy and critical theory.

A stunning new edition of the second novel in the bestselling Bone Season series with gorgeous new cover artwork and updated text, by the bestselling author of The Priory of the Orange Tree.

Paige Mahoney has escaped the secret prison city of Oxford. Now a fugitive in London, she nurtures a new taste for revolution.

Oxford may be behind her, but the Republic of Scion is undefeated. As Scion turns its all-seeing eye on Paige, she is forced to return to Jaxon Hall, her charismatic and brutal employer, to keep her foothold in the underworld.

But Paige will bow to only one now, and not even Jaxon will stop her exposing the corruption in the syndicate. As she plots to with the fabled Rose Crown, both sides of an ancient conflict seek her talents for themselves.