"In this era of financial crisis compounded, and even perhaps enabled, by a dearth of investigative reporting, it is valuable to go back in time to learn from the work of great journalists with the courage to have taken on avaricious corporations and irresponsible business practices. "Perhaps no book demands our attention and respect as much as the one now in your hands. The unabridged edition, long out of print, of Ida Tarbell's study/expose of the history of the Standard Oil Company is an American classic, a model of careful research, detailed analysis, clear expository writing, and social mission. It has been hailed as one of the top ten of journalism's greatest hits." In Volume I, Tarbell explores: [ the birth of the oil industry [ the rise of the Standard Oil Company [ the "oil war" of 1872 [ the beginnings of the oil trust [ the first interstate commerce bill [ and more. IDA MINERVA TARBELL (1857-1944) is remembered today as a muckraking journalist, thanks to this 1904 blockbuster expos. Originally published as a series of articles in McClure's magazine, this groundbreaking work highlighted the dangers of business monopolies and contributed to the eventual breakup of Standard Oil. As modern-day muckraker Danny Schechter writes in his new introduction, exclusive to this Cosimo Classics edition. He is editor of Mediachannel.org and author of numerous books on the media, including Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity and the Subprime Scandal (Cosimo).

This book uses gender as a framework to offer unique insights into the socio-cultural foundations of Buddhism. Moving away from dominant discourses that discuss women as a single monolithic, homogenous category-thus rendering them invisible within the broader religious discourse-this monograph examines their sustained role in the larger context of South Asian Buddhism and reaffirms their agency. It highlights the multiple roles played by women as patrons, practitioners, lay and monastic members, etc. within Buddhism. The volume also investigates the individual experiences of the members, and their equations and relationships at different levels-with the Samgha at large, with their own respective Bhiksu or Bhiksuni Sangha, with the laity, and with members of the same gender (both lay and monastic). It rereads, reconfigures and reassesses historical data in order to arrive at a new understanding of Buddhism and the social matrix within which it developed and flourished. Bringing together archaeological, epigraphic, art historical, literary as well as ethnographic data, this volume will be of interest to researchers and scholars of Buddhism, gender studies, ancient Indian history, religion, and South Asian studies.

The Lived Ancient Religion project has radically changed perspectives on ancient religions and their supposedly personal or public character. This volume applies and further develops these methodological tools, new perspectives and new questions. The religious transformations of the Roman Imperial period appear in new light and more nuances by comparative confrontation and the integration of many disciplines. The contributions are written by specialists from a variety of disciplinary contexts (Jewish Studies, Theology, Classics, Early Christian Studies) dealing with the history of religion of the Mediterranean, West-Asian, and European area from the (late) Hellenistic period to the (early) Middle Ages and shaped by their intensive exchange. From the point of view of their respective fields of research, the contributors engage with discourses on agency, embodiment, appropriation and experience. They present innovative research in four fields also of theoretical debate, which are "Experiencing the Religious", "Switching the Code", "A Thing Called Body" and "Commemorating the Moment".

This book meticulously recreates the most important episodes in Czech-German relations in what is now the Czech Republic. Drawing on extensive archival research, Stephen M. Thomas depicts the formation of the Czechoslovak Republic from the ruined Austro-Hungarian empire and examines political and public life between world wars via the ethnic rivalry between Germans and Czechs. He questions the nature, legitimacy and political viability of the nation state, and especially its relationship to ethnic minorities, such as the Slovaks. Confrontational nationalism and the use of ethnicity as a political tool are no less common today than they were in the 20th century. This book's radical contribution to studies of nationalism and ethnicity is that it juxtaposes German and Czech perspectives of power and oppression as part of the same story. This framework allows us to appreciate new complexities regarding the creation of Czechoslovakia and ponder them in 21st century terms.

In this ground-breaking work on the Ottoman town of Manastir (Bitola), Robert Mihajlovski, provides a detailed account of the development of Islamic, Christian and Sephardic religious architecture and culture as it manifested in the town and precincts. Originally a town on the edge of the Via Egnatia, this small provincial town gradually developed into a significant administrative, military, religious, cultural and intellectual centre for the Balkans; a vibrant place, nurturing progressive multi-cultural and multi-confessional values with considerable influence on the formation of modern Balkan identities. The present work is the culmination of thirty years of research using primary source material from archives and chronicles and the monuments themselves for the purpose of both preserving and extending the boundaries of current knowledge. It offers a comprehensive biography of a great cultural knot in the Balkans and offers a rich source for further use by scholars, students and non-technical readership alike.

This book examines how computer-based programs can be used to acquire 'big' digital cultural heritage data, curate, and disseminate it over the Internet and in 3D visualization platforms with the ultimate goal of creating long-lasting "digital heritage repositories.' The organization of the book reflects the essence of new technologies applied to cultural heritage and archaeology. Each of these stages bring their own challenges and considerations that need to be dealt with. The authors in each section present case studies and overviews of how each of these aspects might be dealt with. While technology is rapidly changing, the principles laid out in these chapters should serve as a guide for many years to come. The influence of the digital world on archaeology and cultural heritage will continue to shape these disciplines as advances in these technologies facilitate new lines of research. serif">The book is divided into three sections covering acquisition, curation, and dissemination (the major life cycles of cultural heritage data). Acquisition is one of the fundamental challenges for practitioners in heritage and archaeology, and the chapters in this section provide a template that highlights the principles for present and future work that will provide sustainable models for digital documentation. Following acquisition, the next section highlights how equally important curation is as the future of digital documentation depends on it. Preservation of digital data requires preservation that can guarantee a future for generations to come. The final section focuses on dissemination as it is what pushes the data beyond the shelves of storage and allows the public to experience the past through these new technologies, but also opens new lines of investigation by giving access to these data to researchers around the globe. Digital technology promises significant changes in how we approach social sciences, cultural heritage, and archaeology. However, researchers must consider not only the acquisition and curation, but also the dissemination of these data to their colleagues and the public. Throughout the book, many of the authors have highlighted the usefulness of Structure from Motion (SfM) work for cultural heritage documentation; others the utility and excitement of crowdsourcing as a 'citizen scientist' tool to engage not only trained students and researchers, but also the public in the cyber-archaeology endeavor. Both innovative tools facilitate the curation of digital cultural heritage and its dissemination. Together with all the chapters in this volume, the authors will help archaeologists, researchers interested in the digital humanities and scholars who focus on digital cultural heritage to assess where the field is and where it is going.

The book covers Egyptian history from the Predynastic to the late Roman Period. It also introduces early contemporary literary references to ancient Egypt and uses a number of theoretical approaches to interrogate the archaeological and textual data.

In The Lordship of the Isles, twelve specialists offer new insights on the rise and fall of the MacDonalds of Islay and the greatest Gaelic lordship of later medieval Scotland. Portrayed most often as either the independently-minded last great patrons of Scottish Gaelic culture or as dangerous rivals to the Stewart kings for mastery of Scotland, this collection navigates through such opposed perspectives to re-examine the politics, culture, society and connections of Highland and Hebridean Scotland from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. It delivers a compelling account of a land and people caught literally and figuratively between two worlds, those of the Atlantic and mainland Scotland, and of Gaelic and Anglophone culture. Contributors are David Caldwell, Sonja Cameron, Alastair Campbell, Alison Cathcart, Colin Martin, Tom McNeill, Lachlan Nicholson, Richard Oram, Michael Penman, Alasdair Ross, Geoffrey Stell and Sarah Thomas.