This book provides an analysis of the development and deployment of chemical weapons from 700 BC to the present day. The First World War is examined in detail since it remains the most significant experience of the chemical threat, but the Second World War and post-war conflicts are also evaluated. Additionally, protocols attempting to control the proliferation and use of chemical weapons are assessed. Finally, the book examines the threat (real and imagined) from a chemical warfare attack today by rationally assessing to what extent terrorist groups around the world are capable of making and using such weapons.

This book provides an analysis of the development and deployment of chemical weapons from 700 BC to the present day. The First World War is examined in detail since it remains the most significant experience of the chemical threat, but the Second World War and post-war conflicts are also evaluated. Additionally, protocols attempting to control the proliferation and use of chemical weapons are assessed. Finally, the book examines the threat (real and imagined) from a chemical warfare attack today by rationally assessing to what extent terrorist groups around the world are capable of making and using such weapons.

humorous and touching accounts of chapel, outdoor and waterfall wedding ceremonies

This thesis uses statistical analysis to forecast the probability of meeting or exceeding the maximum allowable wind speeds for each of the launch pads at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and Cape Canaveral Air Station (CCAS). Wind data were collected from the Weather Information Network Display System (WINDS), a collection of 47 meteorological towers located throughout KSC and CCAS, over a period of five winters. A Fortran program was written to calculate conditional probabilities of meeting or exceeding a given threshold speed during eight consecutive one-hour periods, using the current wind direction and peak wind speed as inputs. Forecast probabilities were displayed in a table according to time period and wind direction. Accuracy was measured by constructing contingency tables and calculating various measures of accuracy. Results were tested for significance by calculating p-values for the chi-square test. This method was found to have very little skill in forecasting maximum wind speeds. It is not recommended for operational use.

The Necropolitical Theater: Race and Immigration on the Contemporary Spanish Stage demonstrates how theatrical production in Spain since the early 1990s has reflected national anxieties about immigration and race. Jeffrey K. Coleman argues that Spain has developed a "necropolitical theater" that casts the non-European immigrant as fictionalized enemy - one whose nonwhiteness is incompatible with Spanish national identity and therefore poses a threat to the very Europeannes of Spain. The fate of the immigrant in the necropolitical theater is death, either physical or metaphysical, which preserves the status quo and provides catharsis for the spectator faced with the notion of racial diversity. Marginalization, forced assimilation, and physical death are outcomes suffered by Latin American, North African, and sub-Saharan African characters, respectively, and in these differential outcomes determined by skin color Coleman identifies an inherent racial hierarchy informed by the legacies of colonization and religious intolerance. Drawing on theatrical texts, performances, legal documents, interviews, and critical reviews, this book challenges Spanish theater to develop a new theatrical space. Jeffrey K. Coleman proposes a "convivial theater" that portrays immigrants as contributors to the Spanish state and better represents the multicultural reality of the nation today.

The Necropolitical Theater: Race and Immigration on the Contemporary Spanish Stage demonstrates how theatrical production in Spain since the early 1990s has reflected national anxieties about immigration and race. Jeffrey K. Coleman argues that Spain has developed a "necropolitical theater" that casts the non-European immigrant as fictionalized enemy - one whose nonwhiteness is incompatible with Spanish national identity and therefore poses a threat to the very Europeannes of Spain. The fate of the immigrant in the necropolitical theater is death, either physical or metaphysical, which preserves the status quo and provides catharsis for the spectator faced with the notion of racial diversity. Marginalization, forced assimilation, and physical death are outcomes suffered by Latin American, North African, and sub-Saharan African characters, respectively, and in these differential outcomes determined by skin color Coleman identifies an inherent racial hierarchy informed by the legacies of colonization and religious intolerance. Drawing on theatrical texts, performances, legal documents, interviews, and critical reviews, this book challenges Spanish theater to develop a new theatrical space. Jeffrey K. Coleman proposes a "convivial theater" that portrays immigrants as contributors to the Spanish state and better represents the multicultural reality of the nation today.

In Renaissance Italy there existed a rich interplay between two cultural practices frequently regarded as entirely separate and mutually antagonistic: the humanistic study of the ancient world and ancient literature, and the oral and improvisational performance of poetry, which constituted one of the most popular forms of entertainment. A Sudden Frenzy explores the development and impact of these Renaissance practices of improvisation and oral poetry. James K. Coleman shows how the confluence of humanist culture and the art of oral poetry resulted in an extraordinary turn toward improvisation and spontaneity that profoundly influenced poetry, music, and politics. By examining the culture of improvisation, this book reveals the ways in which Renaissance thinkers transcended cultural dichotomies, both in theory and in practice. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including letters, poetry, visual art, and philosophical texts, A Sudden Frenzy reveals the far-reaching and sometimes surprising ways that these phenomena shaped cultural developments in the Italian Renaissance and beyond.

In the spring of 1861, Ambrose Bierce, just shy of nineteen, became Private Bierce of the Ninth Indiana Volunteer Infantry. For the next four years, Bierce marched and fought throughout the western theater of the Civil War. Because of his searing wartime experience, Bierce became a key writer in the history of American literary realism. Scholars have long asserted that there are concrete connections between Bierce's fiction and his service, but surprisingly no biographer has focused solely on Bierce's formative Civil War career and made these connections clear. Christopher K. Coleman uses Ambrose Bierce's few autobiographical writings about the war and a deep analysis of his fiction to help readers see and feel the muddy, bloody world threatening Bierce and his fellow Civil War soldiers. Across the Tennessee River from the battle of Shiloh, Bierce, who could only hear the battle in the darkness writes, "The death-line was an arc of which the river was the chord." Ambrose Bierce and the Period of Honorable Strife is a fascinating account of the movements of the Ninth Indiana Regiment-a unit that saw as much action as any through the war-and readers will come to know the men and leaders, the deaths and glories, of this group from its most insightful observer. Using Bierce's writings and a detective's skill to provide a comprehensive view of Bierce's wartime experience, Coleman creates a vivid portrait of a man and a war. Not simply a tale of one writer's experience, this meticulously researched book traces the human costs of the Civil War. From small early skirmishes in western Virginia through the horrors of Shiloh to narrowly escaping death from a Confederate sniper's bullet during the battle of Kennesaw Mountain, Bierce emerges as a writer forged in war, and Coleman's gripping narrative is a genuine contri bution to our understanding of the Western Theater and the development of a protean writer.