'A wonderful book. Thoughtful...fascinating' Malcolm Gladwell Do you believe some people are born athletes? Is sporting talent innate or something that can be achieved through endurance and practise? In this ground-breaking and entertaining exploration of athletic success, award-winning writer David Epstein gets to the heart of the great nature vs. nurture debate, and explodes myths about how and why humans excel. Along the way, Epstein: - Exposes the flaws in the so-called 10,000-hour rule that states that rigorous practice from a young age is the only route to success. - Shows why some skills that we imagine are innate are not - like the bullet-fast reactions of a baseball player. - Uncovers why other characteristics that we assume are entirely voluntary, like the motivation to practice, might in fact have important genetic components. Throughout, The Sports Gene forces us to rethink the very nature of success.

The essays in this important collection explore wide-ranging aspects of the syntax and semantics of human languages. Key topics covered include movement phenomena and the syntax of logical form, methods in generative linguistics and the role of rules vs. principles in syntactic theory. This volume makes a vital contribution to substantive and methodological debates in linguistic theory.

A powerful argument for how to succeed in any field: develop broad interests and skills while everyone around you is rushing to specialize.

From the ‘10,000 hours rule’ to the power of Tiger parenting, we have been taught that success in any field requires early specialization and many hours of deliberate practice. And, worse, that if you dabble or delay, you'll never catch up with those who got a head start.

This is completely wrong.

In this landmark book, David Epstein shows you that the way to succeed is by sampling widely, gaining a breadth of experiences, taking detours, experimenting relentlessly, juggling many interests – in other words, by developing range.

Studying the world's most successful athletes, artists, musicians, inventors and scientists, Epstein demonstrates why in most fields – especially those that are complex and unpredictable – generalists, not specialists are primed to excel. No matter what you do, where you are in life, whether you are a teacher, student, business analyst, parent, or job hunter, you will see the world differently after you've read Range. You'll understand better how we solve problems, how we learn and how we succeed. You'll see why failing a test is the best way to learn and why frequent quitters end up with the most fulfilling careers.

As experts silo themselves further while computers master more of the skills once reserved for highly focused humans, Range shows how people who think broadly and embrace diverse experiences and perspectives will increasingly thrive and why spreading your knowledge across multiple domains is the key to your success, and how to achieve it.

This pathbreaking study presents a new perspective on the role of derivation, the series of operations by which sentences are formed. Working within the Minimalist Program and focusing on English, the authors develop an original theory of generative syntax, providing illuminating new analyses of some central syntactic constructions. Two key questions are explored: first, can the Extended Projection Principle (EPP) be eliminated from Minimalist analysis without loss, and perhaps with a gain in empirical coverage; and second, is the construct 'A-Chain' similarly eliminable? The authors argue that neither EPP nor the A-chain is in fact a property of Universal Grammar, but rather their descriptive content can be deduced from independently motivated properties of lexical items, in accordance with overarching principles governing derivation. In investigating these questions, a range of new data is introduced, and existing data re-analyzed, presenting a pioneering challenge to fundamental assumptions in syntactic theory.

The Roman Republic was governed by a small group of men who agreed far more than they disagreed on the fundamental questions facing the state. The details of their public behaviour can thus only be understood in relation to the idiosyncrasies deeply embedded in Roman political culture, one of the most important of which was that of personal hatred - 'inimicitia'. Personal Enmity in Roman Politics, first published in 1987, explores how 'inimicitia' could arise and how it was often central in the formation of political factions. In particular, groups opposing such powerful figures as Pompey and Caesar might be united by nothing more than common hatred of the individual. An important feature too was the criminal trial, because of the highly personal nature of the Roman adversary system at the time: Epstein argues that personal factors were more important than political ones in the famous trials of the late Republic.

The Roman Republic was governed by a small group of men who agreed far more than they disagreed on the fundamental questions facing the state. The details of their public behaviour can thus only be understood in relation to the idiosyncrasies deeply embedded in Roman political culture, one of the most important of which was that of personal hatred - 'inimicitia'. Personal Enmity in Roman Politics, first published in 1987, explores how 'inimicitia' could arise and how it was often central in the formation of political factions. In particular, groups opposing such powerful figures as Pompey and Caesar might be united by nothing more than common hatred of the individual. An important feature too was the criminal trial, because of the highly personal nature of the Roman adversary system at the time: Epstein argues that personal factors were more important than political ones in the famous trials of the late Republic.

The 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games are likely to feature the first transgender athlete, a topic that will be highly contentious during the competition. But transgender and intersex athletes such as Laurel Hubbard, Tifanny Abreu, and Caster Semenya didn’t just turn up overnight. Both intersex and transgender athletes have been newsworthy stories for decades. In Sporting Gender: The History, Science, and Stories of Transgender and Intersex Athletes, Joanna Harper provides an in-depth examination of why gender diverse athletes are so controversial. She not only delves into the history of these athletes and their personal stories, but also explains in a highly accessible manner the science behind their gender diversity and why the science is important for regulatory committees—and the general public—to consider when evaluating sports performance. Sporting Gender gives the reader a perspective that is both broad in scope and yet detailed enough to grasp the nuances that are central in understanding the controversies over intersex and transgender athletes. Featuring personal investigations from the author, who has had first-person access to some of the most significant recent developments in this complex arena, this book provides fascinating insight into sex, gender, and sports.

Contents:
1. A note on functional determination and strong crossover
2. Quantifier-pro and the LF Representation of PROarb
3. The local binding condition and LF chains
4. Adjunction and pronominal variable binding
5. Quantification in operator constructions
6. Differentiation and reduction in syntactic theory: a case study
7. Derivational constraints on A-chain formation
8. Overt scope marking and covert verb-second
9. Un-principled syntax and the derivation of syntactic relations
null

The "New York Times" bestseller - with a new afterword about early specialization in youth sports.
The debate is as old as physical competition. Are stars like Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, and Serena Williams genetic freaks put on Earth to dominate their respective sports? Or are they simply normal people who overcame their biological limits through sheer force of will and obsessive training?
In this controversial and engaging exploration of athletic success and the so-called 10,000-hour rule, David Epstein tackles the great nature vs. nurture debate and traces how far science has come in solving it. Through on-the-ground reporting from below the equator and above the Arctic Circle, revealing conversations with leading scientists and Olympic champions, and interviews with athletes who have rare genetic mutations or physical traits, Epstein forces us to rethink the very nature of athleticism.

Russia's Agriculture in Transition: Factor Markets and Constraints on Growth examines the development of factor markets in Russian agriculture during the transition to a market economy and analyzes the impact of existing constraints on agricultural growth. It is the outcome of a 3-year study conducted with the support of BASIS/CRSP by an international team that included researchers from Russia, the United States, and Israel. The study focused specifically on the development of factor markets in Russian agriculture-markets for labor, purchased inputs, land, and credit. In the literature on transition agriculture, this book is the first devoted explicitly to markets for farm inputs, instead of markets for farm products. It is also unique in its integration of official statistical data with the findings of a large questionnaire-based survey designed to cover issues of agricultural land, labor, supply and use of purchased inputs, access to credit, and-ultimately-farm production with a view to efficiency estimations. Russia's Agriculture in Transition will be of great interest to development economists, agricultural economists, transition scholars, and international donor organizations, in addition to scholars and students of many other related disciplines.

In this path-breaking book, David Epstein and Sharyn O'Halloran produce the first unified theory of policy making between the legislative and executive branches. Examining major US policy initiatives from 1947 to 1992, the authors describe the conditions under which the legislature narrowly constrains executive discretion, and when it delegates authority to the bureaucracy. In doing so, the authors synthesize diverse and competitive literatures, from transaction cost and principal-agent theory in economics, to information models developed in both economics and political science, to substantive and theoretical work on legislative organization and on bureaucratic discretion.

In this path-breaking book, David Epstein and Sharyn O'Halloran produce the first unified theory of policy making between the legislative and executive branches. Examining major US policy initiatives from 1947 to 1992, the authors describe the conditions under which the legislature narrowly constrains executive discretion, and when it delegates authority to the bureaucracy. In doing so, the authors synthesize diverse and competitive literatures, from transaction cost and principal-agent theory in economics, to information models developed in both economics and political science, to substantive and theoretical work on legislative organization and on bureaucratic discretion.

O. THE CONTENTS OF THIS VOLUME AND THE FIELD OF COMPARATIVE GERMANIC SYNTAX Comparati ve synchronic and diachronic syntax has become an increasingly popular and fruitful research area over the past 10-15 years. A central reason for this is that recent developments in linguistic theory have made it possible to formulate explicit and testable hypotheses concerning syntactic universals and cross-linguistic varia- tion. Here we refer to the so-called "Principles-and-Parameters" approaches (see Chomsky 1981a, 1982, 1986a, and also Williams 1987, Freidin 1991, Chomsky and Lasnik 1993, and references cited in these works). It may even be fair to say that the Government-Binding framework (first outlined by Chomsky 1981b)-a spe- cific instantiation of the Principles-and-Parameters approach-has been more influential than any other theoretical syntactic framework. Since 1984, syntacticians investigating the formal properties of Germanic languages have, as an international effort, organized "workshops" on comparative Germanic syntax. The first was held at the University of Trondheim in Trondheim, Norway (1984), the second at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik, Iceland (1985), the third at the University of Abo in Abo, Finland (1986), the fourth at McGill University, Montreal, Canada (1987), the fifth in Groningen, The Nether- lands (1988), the sixth in Lund, Sweden (1989), the seventh in Stuttgart, Germany (1991), the eighth in Troms~, Norway (1992), the ninth at Harvard University, Cambridge, USA (1994), the tenth at the Catholic University in Brussels, Belgium (1995), and the eleventh at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, USA (1995).

This study investigates the distribution of traces and their antecedents. The first chapter outlines the Government and Binding theory, enabling those unfamiliar with this framework to understand the ensuing discussion. The second chapter concerns the Empty Category Principle. Argument/adjunct asymmetries are shown to follow from an independently motivated indexing algorithm, which entails that adjuncts display an impoverished indexing. The third chapter deduces the properties of A-chains from independently motivated principles, offering a thorough examination of Super-Raising, Improper Movement, and the Local Binding Condition. The final chapter challenges the standard assumptions regarding Case requirements on traces.

This pathbreaking study presents a new perspective on the role of derivation, the series of operations by which sentences are formed. Working within the Minimalist Program and focusing on English, the authors develop an original theory of generative syntax, providing illuminating new analyses of some central syntactic constructions. Two key questions are explored: first, can the Extended Projection Principle (EPP) be eliminated from Minimalist analysis without loss, and perhaps with a gain in empirical coverage; and second, is the construct 'A-Chain' similarly eliminable? The authors argue that neither EPP nor the A-chain is in fact a property of Universal Grammar, but rather their descriptive content can be deduced from independently motivated properties of lexical items, in accordance with overarching principles governing derivation. In investigating these questions, a range of new data is introduced, and existing data re-analyzed, presenting a pioneering challenge to fundamental assumptions in syntactic theory.

Humorous verses about Biblical Characters and Holidays. Very Funny and Very Entertaining