After some years using published material to teach newcomers the rudiments of bridge bidding, the author became somewhat disillusioned with the approach advocated in the majority of beginning bridge texts. The matters that particularly concerned him were related to the view espoused by many bridge teachers that it is important to keep all bidding 'natural' so as not to confuse beginners. The author felt that if confusion exists, it is likely to be the teaching approach that causes the confusion, rather than the subject matter itself.The proponents of this 'natural' bidding approach, decline to teach beginning students Jacoby Transfer Bids, Weak Two Opening Bids and, in some cases, Stayman. The reason often given is that teaching 'natural' bidding is difficult enough for beginning bridge students, and we should not confuse them by teaching them conventions or treatments that say something different. These same teachers seem to see no inconsistency in their approach of saying, when the students are doing a second (or third) class with them - "oh, remember when I told you that when your partner makes an opening bid of 1NT and you have 7 points and a five card ♥ suit, that you should bid 2♥? Well, I want you to forget that, because I am going to teach you now that, with that same hand, you should bid 2♦." The author has two problems with that approach. Firstly, it seems to downplay the ability of students to understand these specific bids. The author contends that it is most likely that this is a 'teaching failure' rather than a 'learning failure' The author has found that once students fully understand that it is desirable to have the strong hand as Declarer, most of them have little problem understanding the rationale behind Jacoby Transfer Bids. Putting the bids in context seems to make the task of learning Transfer Bids much easier. Secondly, if teachers are hoping to encourage their students to become duplicate bridge players, it makes sense for them to be using a bidding system that other players are using. As almost all duplicate bridge players use Stayman, Jacoby Transfer Bids and Weak Two Opening Bids, the author's students are introduced to these bids in their first series of lessons. And it is important to note that an understanding of these 3 aspects of bridge bidding will not prove to be a disadvantage in social bridge. The theme throughout the book is one of providing clear, consistent guidelines for a relatively simple modern approach to bidding. The author repeatedly emphasizes that once newcomers have a reasonable understanding of basic bidding, they, and their partner, can 'tweak' the approach taught in this text. The author is an avid duplicate bridge player and encourages all of his students to try that form of the game. However, the reality is that many bridge players enjoy the game in its more social form, and have no real desire to go past that form of the game. This is perfectly understandable, and the bidding style taught in this text is consistent with either form of the game. This book is organized into nine Chapters.CHAPTER 1 - The Basics.This Chapter is really 'Ground Zero'. It recognizes that some people who wish to learn to play bridge have had little, if any, experience of playing card games. The text introduces students to the absolute basics: -the suits -the rank, or hierarchy, of suits-how to count points-what is a 'game' in bridge-dealing-arranging the cards in your hand-the process of bidding-the process of playing-scoring.In this first, very basic, Chapter, students have a hand of bridge to play. At the end of the Chapter there is a brief test to enable students to check their mastery of the material provided in the text. Clearly not all students "need" this Chapter. Nevertheless as the purpose of the book is to provide a text to enable ALL students to be introduced to the wo

Brian McReynolds has finally graduated at the top of his class from the police academy as a detective. He lands a job with the New York Police Department in the Homicide division. Both good and bad come his way when he falls in love with a beautiful waitress at the local diner, but his best friend becomes involved in drugs. Now Brian must try to help his friend before it's too late.

This book studies the uses of orality in Italian society, across all classes, from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, with an emphasis on the interrelationships between oral communication and the written word. The Introduction provides an overview of the topic as a whole and links the chapters together. Part 1 concerns public life in the states of northern, central, and southern Italy. The chapters examine a range of performances that used the spoken word or song: concerted shouts that expressed the feelings of the lower classes and were then recorded in writing; the proclamation of state policy by town criers; songs that gave news of executions; the exercise of power relations in society as recorded in trial records; and diplomatic orations and interactions. Part 2 centres on private entertainments. It considers the practices of the performance of poetry sung in social gatherings and on stage with and without improvisation; the extent to which lyric poets anticipated the singing of their verse and collaborated with composers; performances of comedies given as dinner entertainments for the governing body of republican Florence; and a reading of a prose work in a house in Venice, subsequently made famous through a printed account. Part 3 concerns collective religious practices. Its chapters study sermons in their own right and in relation to written texts, the battle to control spaces for public performance by civic and religious authorities, and singing texts in sacred spaces.

The emergence of print in late fifteenth-century Italy gave a crucial new importance to the editors of texts, who determined the form in which texts from the Middle Ages would be read, and who could strongly influence the interpretation and status of texts by adding introductory material or commentary. Brian Richardson here examines the Renaissance circulation and reception of works by earlier writers including Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio and Ariosto, as well as popular contemporary works of entertainment. In so doing he sheds light on the impact of the new printing and editing methods on Renaissance culture, including the standardisation of vernacular Italian and its spread to new readers and writers, the establishment of new standards in textual criticism, and the increasing rivalry between the two cities on which this study is chiefly focused, Venice and Florence.

Even after the arrival of printing in the fifteenth century, texts continued to be circulated within Italian society by means of manuscript. Scribal culture offered rapidity, flexibility and a sense of private, privileged communication. This book is a detailed treatment of the continuing use of scribal transmission in Renaissance Italy. Brian Richardson explores the uses of scribal culture within specific literary genres, its methods and its audiences. He also places it within the wider system of textual communication and of self-presentation, examining the relationships between manuscript and print and between manuscript and the spoken or sung performance of verse. An important contribution to a lively area of the history of the book, this study will be of interest both for the abundance of new material on the circulation of texts in Italy and as a model for how to study the cultures of manuscript and print in early modern Europe.

Investigating the interrelationships between orality and writing in elite and popular textual culture in early modern Italy, this volume shows how the spoken or sung word on the one hand, and manuscript or print on the other hand, could have interdependent or complementary roles to play in the creation and circulation of texts. The first part of the book centres on performances, ranging from realizations of written texts to improvisations or semi-improvisations that might draw on written sources and might later be committed to paper. Case studies examine the poems sung in the piazza that narrated contemporary warfare, commedia dell'arte scenarios, and the performative representation of the diverse spoken languages of Italy. The second group of essays studies the influence of speech on the written word and reveals that, as fourteenth-century Tuscan became accepted as a literary standard, contemporary non-standard spoken languages were seen to possess an immediacy that made them an effective resource within certain kinds of written communication. The third part considers the roles of orality in the worlds of the learned and of learning. The book as a whole demonstrates that the borderline between orality and writing was highly permeable and that the culture of the period, with its continued reliance on orality alongside writing, was often hybrid in nature.

The author suggests that architects and engineers facing the challenges and changes of the construction marketplace in the next century need to develop a marketing agenda which can be supported and reinforced at every level. This work develops a comprehensive marketing discipline that is relevant and applicable to both small and large practices. The marketing discipline of scenario planning, synthesis marketing and strategic mapping is forward looking and intuitive - a radical move away from retrospective, analytical methods of traditional marketing. The author argues that marketing in the late 1990s and beyond will be shaped and formed by synthesis rather than analysis with successful marketing strategies in the next century being based on a synthesis of social, cultural, political and economic factors; a demonstrable ability to bring together and manage a wide variety of project elements; a clear articulation of the benefits of intangibles such as design, quality and purpose.

Investigating the interrelationships between orality and writing in elite and popular textual culture in early modern Italy, this volume shows how the spoken or sung word on the one hand, and manuscript or print on the other hand, could have interdependent or complementary roles to play in the creation and circulation of texts. The first part of the book centres on performances, ranging from realizations of written texts to improvisations or semi-improvisations that might draw on written sources and might later be committed to paper. Case studies examine the poems sung in the piazza that narrated contemporary warfare, commedia dell'arte scenarios, and the performative representation of the diverse spoken languages of Italy. The second group of essays studies the influence of speech on the written word and reveals that, as fourteenth-century Tuscan became accepted as a literary standard, contemporary non-standard spoken languages were seen to possess an immediacy that made them an effective resource within certain kinds of written communication. The third part considers the roles of orality in the worlds of the learned and of learning. The book as a whole demonstrates that the borderline between orality and writing was highly permeable and that the culture of the period, with its continued reliance on orality alongside writing, was often hybrid in nature.

This book studies the uses of orality in Italian society, across all classes, from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, with an emphasis on the interrelationships between oral communication and the written word. The Introduction provides an overview of the topic as a whole and links the chapters together. Part 1 concerns public life in the states of northern, central, and southern Italy. The chapters examine a range of performances that used the spoken word or song: concerted shouts that expressed the feelings of the lower classes and were then recorded in writing; the proclamation of state policy by town criers; songs that gave news of executions; the exercise of power relations in society as recorded in trial records; and diplomatic orations and interactions. Part 2 centres on private entertainments. It considers the practices of the performance of poetry sung in social gatherings and on stage with and without improvisation; the extent to which lyric poets anticipated the singing of their verse and collaborated with composers; performances of comedies given as dinner entertainments for the governing body of republican Florence; and a reading of a prose work in a house in Venice, subsequently made famous through a printed account. Part 3 concerns collective religious practices. Its chapters study sermons in their own right and in relation to written texts, the battle to control spaces for public performance by civic and religious authorities, and singing texts in sacred spaces.

The current period has seen the rise of Islamophobia, a resurgence of fascism in Europe and constant attempts to scapegoat immigrants. This book seeks to challenge the idea that racism is inevitable by taking a critical look at the origins and history of racism in Britain and abroad. The eight authors shared Marxist approach and activist history ensure a smooth narrative and a clear argument for the struggle for liberation today.

During the Italian Renaissance, laywomen and nuns could take part in every stage of the circulation of texts of many kinds, old and new, learned and popular. This first in-depth and integrated analysis of Italian women's involvement in the material textual culture of the period shows how they could publish their own works in manuscript and print and how they promoted the first publication of works composed by others, acting as patrons or dedicatees. It describes how they copied manuscripts and helped to make and sell printed books in collaboration with men, how they received books as gifts and borrowed or bought them, how they commissioned manuscripts for themselves and how they might listen to works in spoken or sung performance. Brian Richardson's richly documented study demonstrates the powerful social function of books in the Renaissance: texts-in-motion helped to shape women's lives and sustain their social and spiritual communities.

Machiavelli examines the glorious republican past of Rome. In contrast with The Prince, this unfinished work upholds the Republic as the best and most enduring style of government.

This book brings together several major essays on foundational topics of narrative studies and the theory of fictionality by one of the preeminent figures of postclassical narrative theory. It reexamines and reconceives the role of the author, the status of implied authors, the model for unnatural narrative theory, the nature of narrative, and the ideological implications of narrative forms. It also explores the status of historical characters in fictional texts, the paradoxes of realism, the presence of multiple implied readers, the role of actual readers, and the question of fictionality. In addition, an appendix offers a useful approach for teaching narrative theory. The book includes analyses of works by Conrad, Joyce, Woolf, Nabokov, Beckett, Jeanette Winterson, Deborah Eisenberg, and others. Throughout, it argues for a more expansive conception of narrative theory and keen attention to the nature and difference of fiction. This provocative book makes crucial interventions in ongoing critical debates about narrative theory, literary theory, and the theory of fictionality, and is essential reading for all students of narrative.

During the Italian Renaissance, laywomen and nuns could take part in every stage of the circulation of texts of many kinds, old and new, learned and popular. This first in-depth and integrated analysis of Italian women's involvement in the material textual culture of the period shows how they could publish their own works in manuscript and print and how they promoted the first publication of works composed by others, acting as patrons or dedicatees. It describes how they copied manuscripts and helped to make and sell printed books in collaboration with men, how they received books as gifts and borrowed or bought them, how they commissioned manuscripts for themselves and how they might listen to works in spoken or sung performance. Brian Richardson's richly documented study demonstrates the powerful social function of books in the Renaissance: texts-in-motion helped to shape women's lives and sustain their social and spiritual communities.

Brian McReynolds has finally graduated at the top of his class from the police academy as a detective. He lands a job with the New York Police Department in the Homicide division. Both good and bad come his way when he falls in love with a beautiful waitress at the local diner, but his best friend becomes involved in drugs. Now Brian must try to help his friend before it's too late.