Tibet is a land bounded by the world s highest mountains, and it is the repository of an ancient culture. For centuries it was viewed by Europeans as a remote, mystical place populated by Buddhist masters with supernatural powers and profound wisdom. In contrast to this image, it was once a warlike country whose expansionist rulers conquered a vast empire that incorporated much of central Asia and parts of China. Even now the Tibetan Plateau remains a scene of contestation, both ideologically and militarily. Major popular uprisings in 1959, 1988, and 2008 have drawn the attention of the world s media, and its religious teachers often attract large crowds when they travel overseas. The situation in the country remains highly volatile today, as the 2008 uprising the largest and most widespread in the history of the region attests. The Historical Dictionary of Tibet is the most comprehensive dictionary published to date on Tibetan history. It covers the history of Tibet from 27,000 BCE to the present through a chronology, an introductory essay, an extensive bibliography, and over 1,000 cross-referenced dictionary entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, culture, anthropology, and sociology. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Tibet."

The Buddhist World joins a series of books on the world's great religions and cultures, offering a lively and up-to-date survey of Buddhist studies for students and scholars alike. It explores regional varieties of Buddhism and core topics including buddha-nature, ritual, and pilgrimage. In addition to historical and geo-political views of Buddhism, the volume features thematic chapters on philosophical concepts such as ethics, as well as social constructs and categories such as community and family. The book also addresses lived Buddhism in its many forms, examining the ways in which modernity is reshaping traditional structures, ancient doctrines, and cosmological beliefs.

The Buddhist World joins a series of books on the world's great religions and cultures, offering a lively and up-to-date survey of Buddhist studies for students and scholars alike. It explores regional varieties of Buddhism and core topics including buddha-nature, ritual, and pilgrimage. In addition to historical and geo-political views of Buddhism, the volume features thematic chapters on philosophical concepts such as ethics, as well as social constructs and categories such as community and family. The book also addresses lived Buddhism in its many forms, examining the ways in which modernity is reshaping traditional structures, ancient doctrines, and cosmological beliefs.

As the pace of economic change seems to only quicken, including rapid technological advance, today's advanced economies face uncertainty from a number of directions, most of which have the potential to change established modes of thinking and the institutional arrangements that underpin basic economic organization. Labor-saving technological advances are accompanied by risks to jobs due to automation. Work is being made more insecure for a wide variety of workers and skill levels because of shifting capital-labor relationships. Regulatory systems are scrambling to adapt to new technologies in infrastructure planning or to the classification of workers under rapidly proliferating "alternative work arrangements." Even the ties that bind groups of countries together in often long-standing bilateral and multilateral trade relationships are increasingly under strain with the rise of populist economic nationalism in some of the world's largest economies. Crucial changes are taking place that risk eroding structures of opportunity, as well as public confidence in the institutions charged with economic policy making in many countries. The expert views contained in this book will be valuable to the reader studying or working on the many overlapping issues of economy, technology, and society and thus looking for insights into some of the most pertinent topics in today's advanced economies. Taking a multidimensional view, this book synthesizes the main issues and dilemmas facing the economy of the future, seeks to frame the trade-offs in policy terms, while also advancing the discussion towards recommendations and solutions. It focuses on the intersection of work, technology, society, infrastructure, and the economic role of government. In this way, the book is centered on some of the most tangible areas of economic structure that reproduce the gains of growth, but it also addresses matters related to the distribution effects and measures that can produce more inclusive and productive outcomes, including the fundamental role of policy and regulation.

As the pace of economic change seems to only quicken, including rapid technological advance, today's advanced economies face uncertainty from a number of directions, most of which have the potential to change established modes of thinking and the institutional arrangements that underpin basic economic organization. Labor-saving technological advances are accompanied by risks to jobs due to automation. Work is being made more insecure for a wide variety of workers and skill levels because of shifting capital-labor relationships. Regulatory systems are scrambling to adapt to new technologies in infrastructure planning or to the classification of workers under rapidly proliferating "alternative work arrangements." Even the ties that bind groups of countries together in often long-standing bilateral and multilateral trade relationships are increasingly under strain with the rise of populist economic nationalism in some of the world's largest economies. Crucial changes are taking place that risk eroding structures of opportunity, as well as public confidence in the institutions charged with economic policy making in many countries. The expert views contained in this book will be valuable to the reader studying or working on the many overlapping issues of economy, technology, and society and thus looking for insights into some of the most pertinent topics in today's advanced economies. Taking a multidimensional view, this book synthesizes the main issues and dilemmas facing the economy of the future, seeks to frame the trade-offs in policy terms, while also advancing the discussion towards recommendations and solutions. It focuses on the intersection of work, technology, society, infrastructure, and the economic role of government. In this way, the book is centered on some of the most tangible areas of economic structure that reproduce the gains of growth, but it also addresses matters related to the distribution effects and measures that can produce more inclusive and productive outcomes, including the fundamental role of policy and regulation.

In this unique city, it's less "Welcome to Boston" and more welcome Boston to you. From street names to driving customs to weather, nothing is as it is wherever you call home, and the locals are proud of it. Boston writer, John Powers, turned his experience of living in Boston for over fifty years into this fun yet practical guide which brings visitors into the real Boston. Fresh with Peter Wallace's animated illustrations, The Boston Handbook gives the inside scoop on everything from transportation to cuisine to architecture to weather. From front to back, there are tips on how to navigate the city (the West End doesn't exist), how to understand Bostonians (Harvard Yard is Hahvid Yahd, and no, you're the one with the accent), and how and why Boston has always been ahead of the rest of the USA

Historical Dictionary of Tibet, Second Edition is a comprehensive resource for Tibetan history, politics, religion, major figures, prehistory and paleontology, with a primary emphasis on the modern period. It also covers the surrounding areas influenced by Tibetan religion and culture, including India, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Central Asia, and Russia. It contains a chronology, a glossary, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 500 cross-referenced entries on important personalities as well as aspects of the country's politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Tibet.

This new edition of Scriptures of the World's Religions uses selections from scriptures to examine the world's religions. It emphasizes religions that are practiced today and features English translations that are accessible to the layperson. This edition examines the collected sacred texts revered by these religions themselves. There are special benefits to exploring the world's religions through selections from their scriptures. In most cases, the sacred texts are the oldest written documents in the tradition, and we gain a sense of immediate connection with these religions by studying the same documents that followers have been reading for millennia.

Wong Kar Wai is known for his romantic and stylish films that explore-in saturated, cinematic scenes-themes of love, longing, and the burden of memory. His style reveals a fascination with mood and texture, and a sense of place figures prominently. In this volume, the first on his entire body of work, Wong Kar Wai and writer John Powers explore Wong's complete oeuvre in the locations of some of his most famous scenes. The book is structured as six conversations between Powers and Wong (each in a different locale), including the restaurant where he shot In the Mood for Love and the snack bar where he shot Chungking Express. Discussing each of Wong's eleven films, the conversations also explore Wong's trademark themes of time, nostalgia, and beauty, and their roots in his personal life. This first book by Wong Kar Wai, lavishly illustrated with more than 250 photographs and film stills and featuring an opening critical essay by Powers, is as evocative as walking into one of Wong's lush films.

The Bolex camera, 16mm reversal film stocks, commercial film laboratories, and low-budget optical printers were the small-gauge media technologies that provided the infrastructure for experimental filmmaking at the height of its cultural impact. Technology and the Making of Experimental Film Culture examines how the avant-garde embraced these material resources and invested them with meanings and values adjacent to those of semiprofessional film culture. By reasserting the physicality of the body in making time-lapse and kinesthetic sequences with the Bolex, filmmakers conversed with other art forms and integrated broader spheres of humanistic and scientific inquiry into their artistic process. Drawing from the photographic qualities of stocks such as Tri-X and Kodachrome, they discovered pliant metaphors that allowed them to connect their artistic practice to metaphysics, spiritualism, and Hollywood excess. By framing film labs as mystical or adversarial, they cultivated an oppositionality that valorized control over the artistic process. And by using the optical printer as a tool for excavating latent meaning out of found footage, they posited the reworking of images as fundamental to the exploration of personal and cultural identity. Providing a wealth of new detail about the making of canonized avant-garde classics by such luminaries as Carolee Schneemann, Jack Smith, and Stan Brakhage, as well as rediscovering works from overlooked artists such as Chick Strand, Amy Halpern, and Gunvor Nelson, Technology and the Making of Experimental Film Culture uses technology as a lens for examining the process of making: where ideas come from, how they are put into practice, and how arguments about those ideas foster cultural and artistic commitments and communities.

This is the most comprehensive and authoritative introduction to Tibetan Buddhism available to date, covering a wide range of topics, including history, doctrines, meditation, practices, schools, religious festivals, and major figures. The revised edition contains expanded discussions of recent Tibetan history and tantra and incorporates important new publications in the field. Beginning with a summary of the Indian origins of Tibetan Buddhism and how it eventually was brought to Tibet, it explores Tibetan Mahayana philosophy and tantric methods for personal transformation. The four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as Bon, are explored in depth from a nonsectarian point of view. This new and expanded edition is a systematic and wonderfully clear presentation of Tibetan Buddhist views and practices.