Over the long nineteenth century, African-descended peoples used the uncertainties and possibilities of emancipation to stake claims to freedom, equality, and citizenship. In the process, people of color transformed the contours of communities, nations, and the Atlantic world. Although emancipation was an Atlantic event, it has been studied most often in geographically isolated ways. The justification for such local investigations rests in the notion that imperial and national contexts are essential to understanding slaving regimes. Just as the experience of slavery differed throughout the Atlantic world, so too did the experience of emancipation, as enslaved people's paths to freedom varied depending on time and place. With the essays in this volume, historians contend that emancipation was not something that simply happened to enslaved peoples but rather something in which they actively participated. By viewing local experiences through an Atlantic framework, the contributors reveal how emancipation was both a shared experience across national lines and one shaped by the particularities of a specific nation. Their examination uncovers, in detail, the various techniques employed by people of African descent across the Atlantic world, allowing a broader picture of their paths to freedom.

Quantum optics, i.e. the interaction of individual photons with matter, began with the discoveries of Planck and Einstein, but in recent years, it has expanded beyond pure physics to become an important driving force for technological innovation. This book serves the broader readership growing out of this development by starting with an elementary description of the underlying physics and then building up a more advanced treatment. The reader is led from the quantum theory of the simple harmonic oscillator to the application of entangled states to quantum information processing.
An equally important feature of the text is a strong emphasis on experimental methods. Primary photon detection, heterodyne and homodyne techniques, spontaneous down-conversion, and quantum tomography are discussed, together with important experiments. These experimental and theoretical considerations come together in the chapters describing quantum cryptography, quantum communications, and quantum computing.

Quantum optics, i.e. the interaction of individual photons with matter, began with the discoveries of Planck and Einstein, but in recent years it has expanded beyond pure physics to become an important driving force for technological innovation. This book serves the broader readership growing out of this development by starting with an elementary description of the underlying physics and then building up a more advanced treatment. The reader is led from the quantum theory of the simple harmonic oscillator to the application of entangled states to quantum information processing. An equally important feature of the text is a strong emphasis on experimental methods. Primary photon detection, heterodyne and homodyne techniques, spontaneous down-conversion, and quantum tomography are discussed; together with important experiments. These experimental and theoretical considerations come together in the chapters describing quantum cryptography, quantum communications, and quantum computing.

Over the long nineteenth century, African-descended peoples used the uncertainties and possibilities of emancipation to stake claims to freedom, equality, and citizenship. In the process, people of color transformed the contours of communities, nations, and the Atlantic world. Although emancipation was an Atlantic event, it has been studied most often in geographically isolated ways. The justification for such local investigations rests in the notion that imperial and national contexts are essential to understanding slaving regimes. Just as the experience of slavery differed throughout the Atlantic world, so too did the experience of emancipation, as enslaved people's paths to freedom varied depending on time and place. With the essays in this volume, historians contend that emancipation was not something that simply happened to enslaved peoples but rather something in which they actively participated. By viewing local experiences through an Atlantic framework, the contributors reveal how emancipation was both a shared experience across national lines and one shaped by the particularities of a specific nation. Their examination uncovers, in detail, the various techniques employed by people of African descent across the Atlantic world, allowing a broader picture of their paths to freedom.

This book deals with whether the 2008 Olympics brought any benefits, or any lasting benefits, to the Chinese people by enhancing human rights and accelerating rule of law development. China views the 2008 Olympics as not merely just an athletic event, but as recognition of its global, economic, diplomatic, and military power. It is a way of extending themselves to the world. It is, to them, a political event in many ways, and one of great significance.

Prior to the abolition of slavery, thousands of African-descended people in the Americas lived in freedom. Their efforts to navigate daily life and negotiate the boundaries of racial difference challenged the foundations of white authority--and linked the Americas together. In Black Freedom in the Age of Slavery John Garrison Marks examines how these individuals built lives in freedom for themselves and their families in two of the Atlantic World's most important urban centers: Cartagena, along the Caribbean coast of modern-day Colombia, and Charleston, in the lowcountry of North America's Atlantic coast. Marks reveals how skills, knowledge, reputation, and personal relationships helped free people of color improve their fortunes and achieve social distinction in ways that undermined whites' claims to racial superiority. Built upon research conducted on three continents, this book takes a comparative approach to understanding the contours of black freedom in the Americas. It reveals in new detail the creative and persistent attempts of free black people to improve their lives and that of their families. It examines how various paths to freedom, responses to the Haitian Revolution, opportunities to engage in skilled labor, involvement with social institutions, and the role of the church all helped shape the lived experience of free people of color in the Atlantic World. As free people of color worked to improve their individual circumstances, staking claims to rights, privileges, and distinctions not typically afforded to those of African descent, they engaged with white elites and state authorities in ways that challenged prevailing racial attitudes. While whites across the Americas shared common doubts about the ability of African-descended people to survive in freedom or contribute meaningfully to society, free black people in Cartagena, Charleston, and beyond conducted themselves in ways that exposed cracks in the foundations of American racial hierarchies. Their actions represented early contributions to the long fight for recognition, civil rights, and racial justice that continues today.

Prior to the abolition of slavery, thousands of African-descended people in the Americas lived in freedom. Their efforts to navigate daily life and negotiate the boundaries of racial difference challenged the foundations of white authority--and linked the Americas together. In Black Freedom in the Age of Slavery John Garrison Marks examines how these individuals built lives in freedom for themselves and their families in two of the Atlantic World's most important urban centers: Cartagena, along the Caribbean coast of modern-day Colombia, and Charleston, in the lowcountry of North America's Atlantic coast. Marks reveals how skills, knowledge, reputation, and personal relationships helped free people of color improve their fortunes and achieve social distinction in ways that undermined whites' claims to racial superiority. Built upon research conducted on three continents, this book takes a comparative approach to understanding the contours of black freedom in the Americas. It reveals in new detail the creative and persistent attempts of free black people to improve their lives and that of their families. It examines how various paths to freedom, responses to the Haitian Revolution, opportunities to engage in skilled labor, involvement with social institutions, and the role of the church all helped shape the lived experience of free people of color in the Atlantic World. As free people of color worked to improve their individual circumstances, staking claims to rights, privileges, and distinctions not typically afforded to those of African descent, they engaged with white elites and state authorities in ways that challenged prevailing racial attitudes. While whites across the Americas shared common doubts about the ability of African-descended people to survive in freedom or contribute meaningfully to society, free black people in Cartagena, Charleston, and beyond conducted themselves in ways that exposed cracks in the foundations of American racial hierarchies. Their actions represented early contributions to the long fight for recognition, civil rights, and racial justice that continues today.