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  Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 1763min

  History on a grand scale - an enchanting masterpiece that explores the making of one of the world's most vibrant civilizations.A People's Tragedy, wrote Eric Hobsbawm, did 'more to help us understand the Russian Revolution than any other book I know'.Now, in Natasha's Dance, internationally renowned historian Orlando Figes does the same for Russian culture, summoning the myriad elements that formed a nation and held it together.  Beginning in the 18th century with the building of St. Petersburg - a 'window on the West' - and culminating with the challenges posed to Russian identity by the Soviet regime, Figes examines how writers, artists and musicians grappled with the idea of Russia itself - its character, spiritual essence and destiny. He skillfully interweaves the great works - by Dostoevsky, Stravinsky, and Chagall - with folk embroidery, peasant songs, religious icons and all the customs of daily life, from food and drink to bathing habits to beliefs about the spirit world. Figes' characters range high and low: the revered Tolstoy, who left his deathbed to search for the kingdom of God, as well as the serf girl Praskovya, who became Russian opera's first superstar and shocked society by becoming her owner's wife.  Like the European-schooled countess Natasha performing an impromptu folk dance in Tolstoy's War and Peace, the spirit of 'Russianness' is revealed by Figes as rich and uplifting, complex and contradictory - a powerful force that unified a vast country and proved more lasting than any Russian ruler or state. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Ric Jerrom. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/adbl/033978/bk_adbl_033978_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  The Chelsea Strangler , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 880min

  In the sapping summer heat of 1665, there is little celebration in London of the naval victory at the Battle of Lowestoft. The King, his retinue and anyone with sufficient means has fled the plague-ridden city, its half-deserted streets echoing the sound of bells tolling the mounting number of deaths. Those who remain clutch doubtful potions to ward off the relentless disease and dart nervously past shuttered buildings, watchful for the thieves who risk their lives to plunder what has been left behind. At Chelsea, a rural backwater by the river, with fine mansions leased to minor members of the Court avoiding the capital, there are more immediate concerns: the government has commandeered the theological college to house Dutch prisoners of war, and there are daily rumours that those sailors are on the brink of escaping. Moreover, a vicious strangler is stalking the neighbourhood. Thomas Chaloner is sent to investigate the murder of the first victim, an inmate of a private sanatorium known as Gorges. There have been thefts there as well, but the few facts he gleans from inmates and staff are contradictory and elusive. He realises, though, that Gorges has stronger links to the prison than just proximity and that the influx of strangers offers plenty of camouflage for a killer - a killer who has no compunction about turning on those determined to stop his murderous rampage. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Gordon Griffin. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/twuk/001067/bk_twuk_001067_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  The Intersection of Science and Theology: Evolutionary Theory and Creation, Hörbuch, Digital, 284min

  Today, the Catholic Church understands science and religion as having a mutual and complementary relationship. Now, you can explore how the two work together in this program. Since Pius XII wrote the papal encyclical Humani Generis in 1950, scientific discovery has been a topic of lively discussion in the Church. In The Intersection of Science and Theology, you will explore the place of science in the Christian tradition. Using the writings of Jesuit priest and scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin as a basis, these lectures look at God's two greatest gifts to humans: the Bible and nature. You will begin by looking at how early Christian apologists, like Tertullian and Irenaeus, tackled questions about science. You will then move through history, looking at debates about faith and reason throughout the centuries. Along the way, you will encounter Isaac Newton, the Enlightenment, Cardinal John Henry Newman, and the controversy caused by Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. As you move into the twentieth century, you will explore the scientific and religious writings of Teilhard, as well as the thought of contemporary scientists. You will look at how these scientists derived from their research a sense of wonder and reverence for creation. In our modern world, biblical creation and the theory of evolution are often seen as contradictory. As you will come to understand, however, creation and evolution actually work together. Understanding science is essential for truly grasping religion. Embark on this exploration today. Language: English. Narrator: James F. Salmon. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/nykm/000283/bk_nykm_000283_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  Look We Have Coming to Dover! , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 57min

  An astonishing, energetic reading by Daljit Nagra of his own hugely acclaimed poetry. Winner of the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and the Costa Poetry Award. Shortilsted for the Guardian First Book Award and winner of the South Bank Show, Arts Council Decibel Award 2008. Look We Have Coming to Dover! is the most acclaimed debut collection of poetry published in recent years as well as one of the most relevant and accessible. Nagra, whose parents came to England from the Punjab in the 1950s, draws on both English and Indian English traditions to tell stories of alienation, assimilation, aspiration and love, from a stowaway's first footprint on Dover Beach to the disenchantment of subsequent generations. In startlingly newly minted language, with crackling vigour and wicked humour, this collection explores the experience of a second-generation British Punjabi. The contradictory feelings of dislocation, assimilation and alienation in this "flighty mix-up country" are emphasised by the shifts of language from Punjabi English - "She effing at my mum / in all di colours of Punjabi" - to regional and formal English. Nagra's licence with language is invigorating - how could you better describe the first flush of married life than "darling is so pirouetty with us / for whirlwind married month"? Daljit Nagra was born and raised in West London then Sheffield and currently lives in Willesden, where he works in a secondary school. Look We Have Coming to Dover! won the Forward Prize for Best Individual Poem 2004. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Daljit Nagra. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/fabe/000029/bk_fabe_000029_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  The Shape of Sex (eBook, ePUB)

  The Shape of Sex is a pathbreaking history of nonbinary sex, focusing on ideas and individuals who allegedly combined or crossed sex or gender categories from 200-1400 C.E. Ranging widely across premodern European thought and culture, Leah DeVun reveals how and why efforts to define "the human" so often hinged on ideas about nonbinary sex.The Shape of Sex examines a host of thinkers-theologians, cartographers, natural philosophers, lawyers, poets, surgeons, and alchemists-who used ideas about nonbinary sex as conceptual tools to order their political, cultural, and natural worlds. DeVun reconstructs the cultural landscape navigated by individuals whose sex or gender did not fit the binary alongside debates about animality, sexuality, race, religion, and human nature. The Shape of Sex charts an embrace of nonbinary sex in early Christianity, its brutal erasure at the turn of the thirteenth century, and a new enthusiasm for nonbinary transformations at the dawn of the Renaissance. Along the way, DeVun explores beliefs that Adam and Jesus were nonbinary-sexed; images of "monstrous races" in encyclopedias, maps, and illuminated manuscripts; justifications for violence against purportedly nonbinary outsiders such as Jews and Muslims; and the surgical "correction" of bodies that seemed to flout binary divisions.In a moment when questions about sex, gender, and identity have become incredibly urgent, The Shape of Sex casts new light on a complex and often contradictory past. It shows how premodern thinkers created a system of sex and embodiment that both anticipates and challenges modern beliefs about what it means to be male, female-and human.

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  • Price: 18.95 EUR excl. shipping
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  The Racial Railroad (eBook, PDF)

  Reveals the legacy of the train as a critical site of race in the United StatesDespite the seeming supremacy of car culture in the United States, the train has long been and continues to be a potent symbol of American exceptionalism, ingenuity, and vastness. For almost two centuries, the train has served as the literal and symbolic vehicle for American national identity, manifest destiny, and imperial ambitions. It's no surprise, then, that the train continues to endure in depictions across literature, film, ad music. The Racial Railroad highlights the surprisingly central role that the railroad has played-and continues to play-in the formation and perception of racial identity and difference in the United States. Julia H. Lee argues that the train is frequently used as the setting for stories of race because it operates across multiple registers and scales of experience and meaning, both as an invocation of and a depository for all manner of social, historical, and political narratives.Lee demonstrates how, through legacies of racialized labor and disenfranchisement-from the Chinese American construction of the Transcontinental Railroad and the depictions of Native Americans in landscape and advertising, to the underground railroad and Jim Crow segregation-the train becomes one of the exemplary spaces through which American cultural works explore questions of racial subjectivity, community, and conflict. By considering the train through various lenses, The Racial Railroad tracks how racial formations and conflicts are constituted in significant and contradictory ways by the spaces in which they occur.

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  Sacred Therapy

  In Sacred Therapy, Estelle Frankel takes a fresh look at the central myths, metaphors, and spiritual practices of the Jewish tradition, explaining how people of any faith can draw upon this rich body of teachings to gain wisdom, clarity, and a deeper sense of meaning in the midst of modern life. In an engaging, accessible, and compassionate style, Frankel brings together tales and teachings from the Bible, the Talmud, Kabbalah, and the Hasidic tradition as well as evocative case studies and guided meditations to create an original, inspirational guide to emotional healing and spiritual growth. Frankel demonstrates the universal applicability and wisdom that is hidden in Jewish sources, and she also presents a way to incorporate these spiritual insights into the practice of psychotherapy. Showing us how to skillfully weave together personal and sacred narrative, she reveals how we can transform our vulnerabilities into strengths and restore a sense of coherence in our lives even when things seem broken or shattered. The ultimate goal of both psychotherapy and spiritual practice, she says, is to open our hearts fully to life?to the raw and painful as well as to the beautiful, joyous, and sacred dimensions of existence?for wholeness is reached only when we can embrace and integrate the contradictory and often fragmented aspects of our being. At a time when so many people are searching for ways to bring greater spiritual depth and meaning to their lives, Frankel offers a powerful and authentic vision of how to do just that.From the Hardcover edition.

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  • Price: 28.99 EUR excl. shipping
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  Why and How Humans Trade, Predict, Aggregate, and Innovate (eBook, PDF)

  Trading, forecasting, aggregating, and innovating (the Four) are key social interactions in human life at both the individual and aggregate levels. They are part of the human fabric because they stem from mankind's peculiarities-heterogeneity, inclination to forecast, sociality, and inventiveness. But humans have multifaceted behavior, too. They are capable of having contradictory impulses towards one another, integrating and disintegrating as well as cooperating and dominating, and behaving prosocially and anti-socially. Hence, humans need to organize themselves in order to maintain, improve, and extend their social interactions as well as a safe and ordered life. Crucial intersections emerge naturally-the efficiency of humans' way of tackling the Four is a joint product of economic systems, institutions, and behaviors. All told, the main idea of this book is to include in a single tour a collection of insights on why and how humans implement the Four. The narrative highlights several connections as well as how key these businesses are as the traveler is escorted through some Four-related behavioral problems and institutional solutions that humans have been, respectively, facing and elaborating over time. Economics students may exploit this book by both inserting what they are learning from textbooks into a wider framework and enjoying some of the hints revealed by the grand social theorizing of giants such as A. Smith and J. Schumpeter. But the proposed tour may also attract outsiders to economics who are curious about disparate economic themes linked to the Four but who wish to gain an overview without engaging in longer readings.

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  • Price: 65.95 EUR excl. shipping
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  Legends of Music: The Life and Legacy of John Lennon , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 164min

  In 1964, girls all across the United States filled venues, almost literally screamed their heads off, and fainted en masse. Almost from the second they played the first note, The Beatles would be hit with the resounding screams, which made it impossible for them to even hear themselves sing. When they made their American debut on The Ed Sullivan Show in early 1964, they were greeted by young fans who whipped themselves up into such a frenzy that some of them fainted. Beatlemania had struck North America, creating a musical and pop culture phenomenon unlike anything the world had ever seen. At the center of it all was John Lennon, the man who founded the Beatles and was instrumental in creating the soundtrack of the 1960s, while producing some of the world's most timeless classics. Together with Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, Lennon became one of the world's most famous men, and he was also one of the world's most interesting and outspoken men, a complex figure who survived a turbulent upbringing, addictions to drugs, and unstable relationships, only to be tragically killed just as he was settling into a serene, comfortable life. His loss is still widely felt today like it was in December 1980, as people remain in awe of his music and continue to grapple with the contradictory nature of his life and work, which at any given moment could oscillate from his notoriously acerbic wit to the endless optimism of "Imagine". ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Robin McKay. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/acx0/035065/bk_acx0_035065_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  The Danaher Diaries: Over 100 of John Danaher's Musings on Jiu-Jitsu, Kaizen, Training, and Living , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 167min

  Since he burst onto the scene as George St. Pierre’s grappling coach in the late 2000’s, John Danaher has risen to be recognized as one of the foremost minds in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and competitive grappling.More than just a coach, Danaher has garnered a reputation as a philosopher of the art. His social media is read by hundreds of thousands, serving as daily inspiration for students around the world. Danaher is able to take the complex and often contradictory rules of jiu-jitsu and break them down into universal concepts. And it’s not just talk: Danaher’s student’s are a who’s-who of combat sports. From MMA champions like George St. Pierre, to grappling phenoms like Gary Tonon and Nikki Ryan. His work speaks for itself.We’ve assembled John Danaher’s most timeless and thought provoking writings, over one hundred passages in short segments. At just a few minutes per passage, they make for the perfect quick listen before hitting the gym, a quiet moment during morning coffee, or a long afternoon listen. Included are Danaher’s famous concepts of:Division and unityThe fundamentals of guard passing and retention  Kaizen and the mindset of constant improvementBuilding the perfect armbars, strangulations, and leg attacksThe power of asymmetry-breaking paradigms in jiu-jitsuThe value of creating systems amongst the chaos of daily trainingScattered throughout are the fascinating little stories of John’s life, from a philosophy major in college, to a bouncer in New York City. It’s an amazing glimpse into the thinking of a modern jiu-jitsu master. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: David Sweeney-Bear. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/acx0/193682/bk_acx0_193682_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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