Influential Book Research Articles

INS special forum on David Sherman’s ‘An Intelligence Classic That Almost Never Was – Roberta Wohlstetter’s Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision

ABSTRACT Roberta Wohlstetter’s Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision is probably the most influential book in the field of intelligence studies. As David Sherman explains, however, government officials attempted to block its publication due to security concerns that seemed to focus on Wohlstetter’s passing reference to World War II SIGINT. Because Sherman’s history raises issues of such ongoing importance to the field of intelligence studies, the editors have invited four scholars to offer their reflections on the classification issues that bedeviled Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision.

Rereading St Ann’s Hill

Among the earliest and most celebrated examples of modern landscape architecture is St Ann’s Hill (1935–1937). Christopher Tunnard designed the landscape and he worked closely with architect Raymond McGrath on the house, St Ann’s Court. The project graced the pages of numerous architecture magazines in the 1930s and 1940s and it made several appearances in Tunnard’s highly influential book Gardens in the Modern Landscape (1938/1948). While the project was designed exclusively for Tunnard and his male lover, there have been no analyses of the project regarding the role that sexual subjectivity played in its design. The following offers a rereading of the project through the lens of queer theories in architecture and domesticity, revealing that St Ann’s Hill hides in plain sight while challenging conventions of the time and likely pays homage to a couple who lived on the site previously and whose relationship also demanded secrecy.

Review Essay: Texas Women’s History in 2021

Review Essay: Texas Women’s History in 2021 Rebecca Sharpless (bio) Texas Women: Their Histories, Their Lives. Edited by Elizabeth Hayes Turner, Stephanie Cole, and Rebecca Sharpless. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2015. Pp. 526. Illustrations, notes, index.) Women in Texas History. By Angela Boswell. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2018. Pp. 345. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.) Redeeming La Raza: Transborder Modernity, Race, Respectability, and Rights. By Gabriela González. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. 261. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.) Agent of Change: Adela Sloss-Vento, Mexican American, Civil Rights Activist, Texas Feminist. By Cynthia Orozco. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2020. Pp. 254. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.) In February 2009, one hundred historians gathered in Fort Worth at TCU to talk about the state of Texas women’s history and how it related to American history and southern history. Elizabeth Hayes Turner, the author of several influential books and articles on Texas women’s history, wanted the state to be included in a book series on southern women at the University of Georgia Press, and the gathering was intended to brainstorm topics for the book. Historians Juliana Barr, Laura Edwards, and Marjorie Spruill traveled to Texas to facilitate the conversations, setting Texas women into wider regional contexts and historiography. How far has Texas women’s history come in the years since the Fort Worth meeting? As the program for the 2021 Texas State Historical Association meeting reveals, it has moved forward significantly in some areas and barely budged in others. In that recent online gathering, eleven [End Page 301] sessions covered aspects of Texas women’s lives, from traditional topics on women’s suffrage and club activism, to queer women’s experiences in print culture and public spaces. Black women, Latinas, and White women all appeared as topics. As always, the conference presentations represented projects that are still in development and may not be available in print for a long time. But they clearly showed that Texas women’s history is going into increasingly diverse, theoretically sophisticated territory. Perhaps the most important theory informing women’s history is intersectionality, which has made its way, surely and definitely, into studies of Texas. Intersectionality, a concept first formulated by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, reminds us that human beings are the products of numerous factors, or, as some writers say, social fault lines.1 Women are not just White or female or Hispanic or working class. Any discussion of women’s experience, in Texas and elsewhere, must consider a multiplicity of influences. In addition to its original emphases on race, ethnicity, and gender, the concept of intersectionality has expanded to include sexuality. The experience of lesbians must now be a part of Texas women’s history. Straight women can no longer be the default mode, just as White women cannot be. Conference papers are one thing, of course, and published books—the results of years of effort on the part of the authors—are quite another. This essay looks at four books published since 2015, examining them for the ways in which theory, particularly intersectionality, informs scholarship on Texas women. The books differ in structure: one is an anthology of essays by individual authors, one is a synthesis of the expansive history of Texas women, and two are scholarly monographs focused on Latina activists in South Texas. But all four are scholarly productions, written by professional historians with graduate training in history, often women’s history—not lay historians or journalists—and they are deeply researched and documented. Taken as a group, these four works reveal much about the state of Texas women’s history. Texas Women: Their Histories, Their Lives and Women in Texas History are both synthetic works, covering long spans of time, the geography of the entire state, and the experiences of countless women. As such, they have both strengths and weaknesses. They exist only because the authors stand on the shoulders of several decades of work in the field of Texas women’s history.2 [End Page 302] The result of the 2009 Fort Worth conference was Texas Women: Their Histories, Their Lives, edited by Elizabeth Hayes Turner, Stephanie...

The Homiliary of Paul the Deacon: Religious and Cultural Reform in Carolingian Europe by Zachary Guiliano

Reviewed by: The Homiliary of Paul the Deacon: Religious and Cultural Reform in Carolingian Europe by Zachary Guiliano Rod Thomson Guiliano, Zachary, The Homiliary of Paul the Deacon: Religious and Cultural Reform in Carolingian Europe (Studies on Patristic, Medieval and Reformation Sermons and Preaching, 16), Turnhout, Brepols, 2021; hardback; pp. 339; 1 b/w, 3 colour illustrations, 13 b/w tables, 2 b/w line art; R.R.P. €90.00; ISBN 9782503577913. This is a model of what a monograph should be. It is a groundbreaking, seductively written introduction to what the author demonstrates to be a text of the first and widest importance (‘The homiliary is a monument in the history of Europe and the world, eminently worthy of further study’, p. 249). Compiled a few years before 800 ce, at Charlemagne’s order, Paul the Deacon’s Homiliary, on the evidence of the surviving copies alone, was to become one of the most widely distributed and most influential liturgical books of medieval Europe. In his first chapter, Dr Guiliano establishes the content of the original text, formerly based (R. Grégoire, Les Homéliares du moyen âge (Spoleto, 1980), pp. 423–78) upon half a dozen ninth-century manuscripts to which were ascribed wrong dates, [End Page 246] provenances, and interrelationships. All this Guiliano corrects, mainly based on first-hand examination of the manuscripts. He lists fifty-seven copies from the ninth and tenth centuries, including thirteen copies of special authority because they preserve at least part of Paul’s original preface. This is an example of the positive help that digital technology is giving to manuscript studies. Whereas nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholars were dependent upon word of mouth, or perhaps printed catalogues (often wrong) for information as to the whereabouts of manuscripts, today one can sweep databases and be reasonably sure of the results. Not that, even now, such research is easy (the difficulties, and Dr Guiliano’s doggedness in tackling them, are outlined on pp. 39–41, 148). Mind you, the difference it makes to Grégoire’s list of the Homiliary’s contents is not so very great (p. 66), mainly involving renumbering rather than alterations to the texts. Dr Guiliano is constantly alert for opportunities to make observations of general importance, and anyone interested in Carolingian Europe should read his book. For instance, at the beginning of his chapter on the Homiliary’s theology: Thus, if we know the theological topics most important to Charlemagne and we know that he thought his homiliary was the greatest collection of patristic texts in his cultural world, it behoves us to ask just what sort of doctrine is found in it and how it relates to the topics outlined in the Admonitio Generalis [... and] other similar pieces of instruction from the period, such as Alcuin’s list of topics for the instruction of the Avars. (p. 175) Again, a painstaking examination of how long it would have taken to make a copy of the (usually two-volume) Homiliary—between one and two years—enables Guiliano to conclude that only a dozen or so copies could have been made before Charlemagne’s death (pp. 127–37). Many more copies survive from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, which is why so many manuscripts of this date figure in his list of authoritative copies. This observation must modify the opinion of those scholars who have maintained that Charlemagne ‘ordered’ that the Homiliary should be used, to the exclusion of all others, throughout his Empire: We cannot know how many communities knew they were using or copying Paul’s text; we cannot even assume that Paul’s preface was consulted by every user of the homiliaries that transmitted it, nor that anyone felt constrained by it. Charlemagne and Paul may have intended the homiliary to be used in a particular way, but others could have used it for all sorts of purposes. (p. 199) A discussion of Paul the Deacon as the ‘author’ of the Homiliary leads to a consideration of the medieval concept of ‘author’ generally (pp. 91–101). And an examination of the sources for the Homiliary’s contents leads to the conclusion that no single...

Reading as Sculpture: A new layer for the library in ruins

This text is an artist’s contribution situated in the intersection of performance art and information technology.[1] It is a sequel to my project Moving Thinking — The origin of one’s thought is the thought of another, in which I implemented a visual presentation of information pathways and a model for the circulation of books between the stacks in the storage and the reading room of the Stedelijk Museum Library in 2015/16. It was a nine-month performance that aimed to reveal how the content of books is interlinked by transforming the current classification system in the reading room and replacing all the books on display with publications from the storage depot. I began by exploring the branching of the influential book Writing as Sculpture by Louwrien Wijers (1996). The book contains interviews between Wijers and important artists and scientists of the day, including Joseph Beuys, Andy Warhol, and Robert Filliou. Taking this title as a starting point, I composed several lengthy sequences of publications, distributed in relation to the floor plan of the museum and its current program. The permutations were recorded by photos and videos viewable on the website of the Stedelijk. This text tells what I learned from this research and how it informed Archival Consciousness, a collaboration with graphic designer Remco van Bladel that aims at interfering in the infrastructure of libraries in museums and cultural institutions by adding a layer of interaction on top of the existing database.

Promoting and Curating US Experimental Cinema in Europe: "The Western American Experimental Film" Tour in 1963 and the New American Cinema

Promoting and Curating US Experimental Cinema in Europe:"The Western American Experimental Film" Tour in 1963 and the New American Cinema Miguel Fernández Labayen (bio) and John Sundholm (bio) Introduction This article is born out of the finding of the program poster of "The Western American Experimental Film" tours in Stockholm (Fig. 1). We found the poster in the archive of Moderna Museet, Stockholm's Museum of Modern Art, when researching the New American Cinema screenings in Europe. Not having ever heard of this program before, we began to trace its origins and history. Somehow, we were confronted by an object, an event, and a past, which had not been written about and had left no trace in the narratives about the presence of US experimental cinema in Europe in the 1960s. Later on, when trying to revisit the program for "'The Gatekeepers exist to be overthrown.' Amos Vogel—Reprisen und Repliken (II)," a film series devoted to Amos Vogel that ran from November 8 to 15, 2021, at Arsenal in Berlin, it turned out to be very difficult and, in some cases, impossible to get hold of the prints. It looked as if the films had also disappeared. The aim of this article is two-fold: on the one hand, we map "The Western American Experimental Film" tour of 1963 in Europe; on the other, we question why some films and filmmakers have vanished from the circulation and the reproduction of American experimental film culture. Hence, even if not being completely omitted from history (or otherwise the remains of the tour would not exist), many of the films and filmmakers within the tour have hardly left any traces in a history, that of the New American Cinema, that we think we know. As such, we approach the Western Experimental Film tour as one of the deviations of the history of the circulation of the New American Cinema in Europe, [End Page 183] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. The poster of "The Western American Experimental Film" at Moderna Museet, Stockholm. Courtesy of Moderna Museet. [End Page 184] a deviation that opens the historiography constructed around the so-called New American Cinema Expositions of 1963–64 and 1967–68 both spatially and temporally, and brings into the fore what have become invisible objects overshadowed by the tours organized by Jonas Mekas and P. Adams Sitney. In order to address the question of why certain films seem to have disappeared from circulation and thus have also been omitted from history, we will look in particular at "The Western American Experimental Film" tour in 1963 as an example of the branding and dissemination of US experimental film culture in the making in Europe in the 1960s. Through a look at promotion, programming, curating, and reception, we will explore the creation of discourses and ways of conceptualizing a set of films. This strategy would become the basis for the New American Cinema apparatus and its aspirations to control the interpretation of the films, which culminated in the 1967–68 film exposition and the publication of P. Adams Sitney's highly influential book Visionary Film in 1974, based on Sitney's experience of travelling with and curating the second grand tour.1 In this way we will also challenge the transcendental historiography of Visionary Film by establishing different histories, written from the perspective of each specific place and its own time-space configuration. That is, contrary to a vision that creates a common denominator for a set of films—establishing an object and following it through time and space—we ground the films in the specific venues where they were/are being screened. These places have their own specific history of screenings, and they are connected by personal and professional affinities to other localities (which do not necessarily have to be situated within the same national boundaries). The organization of the tour The first chronological trace that we have found about the organization of "The Western American Experimental Film" takes us back to the spring of 1963. In March of that year, Bruce Baillie contacted the cine club at Stockholm's Moderna Museet.2 In the letter, Baillie announced that...

Magia Posthuma: Karl Ferdinand von Schertz, Calmet and revenant beliefs

Considered lost for many years, Karl Ferdinand von Schertz’s Magia Posthuma from 1706 has gained the reputation of an influential book on vampires. Recent research shows that the book itself deals exclusively with Moravian revenant and witchcraft beliefs, and that the book had a limited impact on the vampire debate of the eighteenth century. Similarly, the term ‘magia posthuma’ appears to have had limited use before it was employed by the Habsburg court of Maria Theresa in her ruling against superstitious acts towards corpses.

Art histories of corporate imperialism and racial capitalism

‘It is only by means of art that a permanent revolution can be achieved’, claimed socialist and anti-imperialist art historian Ananda Coomaraswamy during a lecture to Newcastle art students in 1913.1 Born to a Tamil father and English mother in Ceylon, then a British colony, Coomaraswamy moved to the UK as a child – later graduating with a degree in geology and botany from University College London in 1900. After spending years documenting Sri Lankan and Indian material culture through a number of highly influential books, he became the first Keeper of Indian art at Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1917. During his Newcastle address, he advised his audience: …any deep and lasting revolution can only be founded upon a re-education of the sense-sensitiveness of the whole race…It is your task as craftsmen to undertake this long neglected education of the senses, nowadays so much despised, and everywhere sacrificed to the purposes of trade, empire.2

Scenarios, strategic conversations, and forecasting: A commentary on Rowland and Spaniol (2021)

AbstractThis commentary revisits an early book review by the author of Kees van der Heijden's influential book, Scenarios: The Art of Strategic Conversation, highlighting the continuing neglect of the role of forecasting in scenario construction. In addition, there still remains considerable ambiguity as to whether scenarios offer more than plausible stories. The review highlights the need to resolve these ambiguities in the scenario research literature through a better understanding of the links between forecasting and scenario construction. The benefit of success would be a greater understanding of long‐term uncertainty.

The Origin and Cultural Evolution of East Asian Cognitive Style: A Case Study of the Book of Changes (Yijing 易經)

Abstract Experimental tests about cross-cultural differentiation of cognitive style conclude that East Asian and Western cognition differ. Tendencies described as East Asian include holism, non-linearity, expectation of change, relationalism, field dependence, causal pluralism, dialecticism, and a tolerance of contradiction. Cross-cultural psychologists generally refrain from discussing the intellectual history or cultural evolution of these differences, preferring to explain results on cognitive scales in terms of results on social scales assessed using present-day participants. The present article attempts to partially close this explanatory gap through detailed discussion of tendencies of East Asian cognitive style as represented in what is probably the most influential book in the history of East Asia, The Book of Changes. This study purports to show (a) that the content of the Yijing 易經 and its commentaries is best described in terms of the cognitive tendencies just mentioned, (b) that reading the Yijing activated those cognitive tendencies, and (c) that the Yijing attained prodigious influence on subsequent Chinese and East Asian cultures through four known mechanisms of cultural transmission. Informed by this case study, researchers of cross-cultural cognition may be positioned to develop a richer appreciation of the cultural representation and evolution of East Asian cognitive style in historical context.

In search of logotherapy.

In his authoritative and extraordinarily influential book Man's Search for Meaning, psychiatrist Viktor Frankl proposed that any individual's life task is to find meaning, that meaning cannot be obtained without suffering, and that suffering allows meaning to be identified. He also articulated his therapeutic model-logotherapy, the so-called third Viennese school of psychotherapy. This article contemplates why logotherapy currently has seemingly little salience and suggests that the most likely reasons reflect some components being taken over by other therapies and by tenets of positive psychology articulated in recent decades.

Aesthetic quality of the historic urban landscape Historic city image and Townscape tradition

A pleasing experience related to the city perception is one of the most important qualities of the urban environment. Since antiquity, this element of appeal and appreciation of the city was considered as crucial in city and architecture treatises. Aristotle sustained that the city should be built in a way to transmit happiness. This atmosphere is evident in the traditional cities, in which monuments, residential buildings, squares and roads make up together a harmonious whole. Referring to the visual quality of traditional cities, in his influential book “The Art of Building Cities” (1889, 1945) Camillo Sitte states that they transmit a sense of nostalgia that remind us of happy times and argues that this feeling of nostalgia is perceived due to the artistic harmony of the city image. The art of building discussed by Sitte includes the idea of the city as an arrangement of its parts into a harmonious whole. This design unity that characterizes traditional ensembles is the key element of visual appeal. Unity happens at different scales. Elements composing the urban structure must be interrelated visually and contribute to reliving the overall image as a whole.

ANTHONY KENNY'S CRITICISM OF AQUINAS' FIRST WAY AND THE OMNE QUOD MOVETUR AB ALIO MOVETUR PRINCIPLE

Anthony Kenny criticized the Five Ways, by Thomas Aquinas, in a widespread and influential book. About the First Way, among other critiques, Kenny considers that Thomas Aquinas failed to prove that “whatever is in motion is put in motion by another”. As this principle is central for the argument developed by Aquinas on the “first mover, put in movement by no other”, the First Way is insufficient and grounded on a mistake. In this article, Aristotle’s and Aquinas’s works are analysed to expose that their arguments about movement are sound and persuasive. On the contrary, Kenny’s criticism is not consistent and is misled by bad interpretation of texts and concepts. Oderberg and Weisheipl agree with Aquinas and Aristotle, and their papers reinforce the conclusions of this article, favourable to the Medieval philosopher and against Kenny.

David McKitterick. The Invention of Rare Books: Private Interest and Public Memory, 1600–1840.

David McKitterick. <i>The Invention of Rare Books: Private Interest and Public Memory, 1600–1840</i>.

The foundations of statistical science: A history of textbook presentations

We discuss how the foundations of statistical science have been presented historically in textbooks, with focus on the first half of the twentieth century after the field had become better defined by advances due to Francis Galton, Karl Pearson, and R. A. Fisher. Our main emphasis is on books that presented the theory underlying the subject, often identified as mathematical statistics, with primary focus on books authored by G. Udny Yule, Maurice Kendall, Samuel Wilks, and Harald Cramér. We also discuss influential books on statistical methods by R. A. Fisher and George Snedecor that showed scientists how to implement the theory. We then survey textbooks published in the quarter century after World War 2, as Statistics gathered more visibility as an academic subject and Departments of Statistics were formed at many universities. We also summarize how Bayesian presentations of Statistics emerged. In each section, we describe how the books were evaluated in reviews shortly after their publications. We conclude by briefly discussing the recent past, the present, and the future of textbooks on the foundations of statistical science and include comments about this by several notable statisticians.

A Critical Interpretation on Language and Power

There is a growing tendency among Chinese students to apply concrete theories by scholars with different backgrounds and predilections in Critical Discourse Analysis (hereinafter referred to as CDA) to conduct academic research. Seen from a general picture, CDA regards “language as social practice” (Fairclough & Wodak, 1997) and takes consideration of the context of language use to be crucial (Wodak, 2000). More importantly, CDA takes a particular interest in the relation between language and power. This paper intends to offer a basic overview of the constituent content in the landmark masterpiece Language and Power in CDA’s programme as well as a critical view on this influential book.

Fünf Thesenpapiere von Falk Wagner

Abstract Falk Wagner (1939–1998) was the leading Hegelian in late 20th century German Protestant theology. Wagner who had studied philosophy with Theodor W. Adorno and Wolfgang Cramer in Frankfurt am Main and Systematic Theology with Wolfhart Pannenberg at the University of Mainz taught Systematic Theology at the Universities of Munich and, since 1988, Vienna. He published several influential books. In his lectures and seminars he frequently handed out short theory papers to his students which should serve as the basis for debate. The five texts presented here for the first time deal with the problems of individual in society and of the modern history of theology, with the doctrine of God (creator and trinity), with the significance of the Bible for the systematic theology and finally with the concept of „Subjektivität“ in G. W. F. Hegel’s philosophy. These texts are an essential source for the development of Wagner’s thought when teaching at the university of Munich until 1988.

Textual research on classical prescriptions in Mongolian medicine

Mongolians have a long history of using prescriptions, which can be classified into four stages as follows: the germination and experience accumulation stage before the 13 th century, the theoretical formation stage from the 13 th to 16 th century, the rapid development stage from the 17 th to 20 th century, and the leaping development stage from the mid-20 th century to the present. The prescriptions from the ancient classical or representative medical books have always been used by Mongolian physicians for generations, and they are still in use due to the definite curative effects. In 2008, the Notice on Issuing the Supplementary Provisions to the Registration and Management of Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM) described that China has attached more importance to the excavation and development of classical prescriptions. As stipulated in the Law of the People's Republic of China on Traditional Chinese Medicine, the classical prescriptions should be those available in ancient TCM classics and still in wide use, with exact curative effects, distinct features, and obvious advantages. This paper expounded the historical formation and development of classical prescriptions in Mongo-lian medicine, introduced the five most influential ancient medical books revealing the formation and development of these classic prescriptions, and traced the origin of such classical prescriptions as Wenguanmu Siwei Decoction, Shouzhangshen Bawei Decoction, Jianghuang Siwei Decoction and summarized the origin, development history and characteristics of classical prescriptions in Mongolian medicine, aiming to provide a reference for their further research and development.

마크 C. 테일러(Mark C. Taylor)의 ‘Erring’ 개념에 대한 선교학적 의미 - 『Erring』 속 성서 본문 세 가지를 중심으로 -

This article is about the concept of “Erring”, articulated in Marck C. Taylor’s most influential book, Erring: A Postmodern A/Theology. The article argues that the concept of Erring can be meaningfully influential in shaping current mission paradigms required for change in the secular world. Erring, as introduced in A/Theology, is explained to be an important theological concept for both those who are spiritual atheists and dissatisfied theists. Therefore, this article seeks to connect the concept of Erring and missiology in order to go beyond the ontological tradition that Christianity has been deeply based upon. This article recaptures and reconstructs the concept of Erring by using three bible passages in Taylor’s writing which are Mark 4:3-9 (The Parable of the Sower), Luke 24:13-35 (The Walk to Emmaus) and the Exodus story. Disappearing subjectivity, the recognition of betweenness, marginality, divine aspects of rootlessness and wandering that can open unexpected and undetermined elements of life, such as grace, are explained. This article concludes philosophically that mission as a carnival of spontaneous and unintentional joyfulness, as the concept of Erring prescribes, should be considered for a new paradigm of missiology.

The Newbolt Report and reading aloud: an overview of the emergence and subsequent development of a poetry pedagogy

ABSTRACT While speaking, reading and writing are identified in the Newbolt Report as components of English and are still acknowledged as such one hundred years later, Reading Aloud, which the Report ranks alongside them, is no longer accorded any prominence. The Newbolt Report connects Reading Aloud with literature and announces it as a method of interpretation, though this is not elaborated as a pedagogic practice. This article examines how a Reading Aloud methodology evolved and was articulated in theory and practice, first in government guidance and then in influential books about English teaching. During this process a methodology emerged in which a focus on voicing and hearing a poem was a means to interpreting and understanding the poem and ultimately to an ideal reading of it. Reasons are suggested why attention shifted away from this practical methodology whereby familiarity with reading poems aloud gives more confident access to understanding and appreciation.