A fascinating tour of the past as it exists today, and of the dangers that threaten it, through incisive portraits of our attempts to maintain it: the high-tech struggles to save the Great Sphinx and the Ganges; the efforts to preserve Latin within the Vatican; the digital glut inside the National Archives, which may have caused more information to be lost than ever before; and an oral culture threatened by a “new” technology: writing itself. Stille explores not simply the past, but our ideas about the past—and how they will have to change if our past is to have a future.

A fascinating tour of the past as it exists today, and of the dangers that threaten it, through incisive portraits of our attempts to maintain it: the high-tech struggles to save the Great Sphinx and the Ganges; the efforts to preserve Latin within the Vatican; the digital glut inside the National Archives, which may have caused more information to be lost than ever before; and an oral culture threatened by a “new” technology: writing itself. Stille explores not simply the past, but our ideas about the past—and how they will have to change if our past is to have a future.

In these pathbreaking essays, Roy Rosenzweig charts the impact of new media on teaching, researching, preserving, presenting, and understanding history. Negotiating between the "cyberenthusiasts" who champion technological breakthroughs and the "digital skeptics" who fear the end of traditional humanistic scholarship, Rosenzweig re-envisions the practices and professional rites of academic historians while analyzing and advocating for the achievements of amateur historians. While he addresses the perils of "doing history" online, Rosenzweig eloquently identifies the promises of digital work, detailing innovative strategies for powerful searches in primary and secondary sources, the increased opportunities for dialogue and debate, and, most of all, the unprecedented access afforded by the Internet. Rosenzweig draws attention to the opening up of the historical record to new voices, the availability of documents and narratives to new audiences, and the attractions of digital technologies for new and diverse practitioners. Though he celebrates digital history's democratizing influences, Rosenzweig also argues that the future of the past in this digital age can only be ensured through the active resistance to efforts by corporations to control access and profit from the Web. (Vol 33, No 2, 2011)

In these pathbreaking essays, Roy Rosenzweig charts the impact of new media on teaching, researching, preserving, presenting, and understanding history. Negotiating between the "cyberenthusiasts" who champion technological breakthroughs and the "digital skeptics" who fear the end of traditional humanistic scholarship, Rosenzweig re-envisions the practices and professional rites of academic historians while analyzing and advocating for the achievements of amateur historians. While he addresses the perils of "doing history" online, Rosenzweig eloquently identifies the promises of digital work, detailing innovative strategies for powerful searches in primary and secondary sources, the increased opportunities for dialogue and debate, and, most of all, the unprecedented access afforded by the Internet. Rosenzweig draws attention to the opening up of the historical record to new voices, the availability of documents and narratives to new audiences, and the attractions of digital technologies for new and diverse practitioners. Though he celebrates digital history's democratizing influences, Rosenzweig also argues that the future of the past in this digital age can only be ensured through the active resistance to efforts by corporations to control access and profit from the Web. (Vol 33, No 2, 2011)

A few years ago, Cementos Mexicanos (Cemex), the world's third-largest cement company, was struggling. More than two-thirds of their deliveries were late, customer complaints were numerous, and new orders were dwindling sharply. Then Cemex executives realized they needed to get a glimpse of the future. They saw themselves responding to customer needs as each need emerged. They visualized successful deliveries with orders placed only an hour in advance. Their entire organization became involved in the process of adapting to unplanned occurrences. By embracing the uncertainty and chaos of their business and a company-wide commitment to excellence, Cemex was completely transformed in a matter of months.This is a remarkable example of minding: identifying a purpose, developing a team, and acting to accomplish that purpose. Achieving this kind of high-level connection is what The Minding Organization is all about. This book will show you how to transform your organization into one that behaves like a living organism-alive with ideas and instantly able to adapt for survival in an increasingly complex, unpredictable global business world.A minding organization coordinates its efforts as a single being; the right hand literally knows what the left hand is doing. The minding process will help you save precious work time, avoid costly mistakes, build incentives for speed, and find creative solutions when unpredictable problems arise.Creating a minding organization will teach you how to:* Operate on the edge of chaos, embracing uncertainty as a strategy* Bring insights up front that would normally be learned much later* Distribute decision-making in such a way that everyone has the responsibility to be right and the authority to be wrong* Create an environment in which the human spirit can soarThe Minding Organization will show you how less planning and more adapting makes for a competitive advantage, as you learn to cope with new, ever-changing conditions and innovate faster than your competitors.Praise for The Minding OrganizationProfessor Rubinstein is one of the foremost experts on creativity within organizations. The Minding Organization is a well-written guide . . . [that] is must reading for anyone responsible for minding the organization.-Norman R. Augustine, Chairman of the Executive Committee, Lockheed MartinThe authors make intuitive good sense and give strategic thinkers the tools they need to turn perceived liabilities-chaos, disorder, unpredictable change-into assets. I've made it must reading for everyone in my organization. The only people I haven't recommended it to are my competitors.-Timothy W. Hannemann, Executive Vice President and General Manager, TRWThis book gives an accessible view of the organization as a living, connected organism. Drs. Rubinstein and Firstenberg have shared an insightful and elegant concept of what successful twenty-first-century organizations MUST be like if they want to survive and grow. We are putting the ideas in this book to use now!-Michael E. Allgeier, Division Vice President, Sensors and Electronics Segment, RaytheonRubinstein is as ebullient in print as he is in person. The Minding Organization transcends time and theory, enabling the practice of innovation as an everyday occurrence.-Stephan Argent, Creative Director, iCandy Inc.In this book you'll find out how to open up a world of opportunity by 'bringing the future to the present'-visualizing the ideal end state and working backwards. You'll see how many obstacles can be eliminated, making the unachievable achievable.-Tom Williams, Vice President, Long Range Strike Business Area, Northrop Grumman Corporation

Once we paid for things with bills, coins, or checks. Today we pay with zeroes and ones—digital entries on credit and debit cards, or electronic messages sent over the Internet. In Moving Money, distinguished analysts explore this trend, its development and likely future, and the ramifications of this transformation. This is a book about money as a medium of exchange—in the past, in the present, but particularly in the future. What forms has money taken over the years? Moreover, how have those means of payment changed in recent years, and how will they develop in the future? And what (if anything) should policymakers do to facilitate those changes, or at least allow them to develop and mature? Brookings economists Robert E. Litan and Martin Neil Baily and a distinguished group of experts dissect these issues and peer into the future of consumer payments. The landscape of the consumer payments industry will be shaped at least in part by public policies. Historically, governments have had monopolies on the manufacture of money. Any form of payment clearly requires trust on the part of both the seller and the buyer, and the government must establish and enforce laws to secure this relationship. More controversial is the issue of whether, and to what extent, government is also needed to protect the market in private sector payments systems. Why do these issues matter? The payments industry is a large and important sector of developed economies. In the United States, private-sector payments providers generate approximately $280 billion a year in revenue, while the government invests substantial resources into making money (minting coins and printing bills) or moving it (via checks and various electronic transfers). And the way we pay for things influences our purchases—what we spend money on, how much we spend, and where we spend it. Thus the future of consumer payments is intertwined with the health of national economies. Contributors: Martin Neil Baily (Brookings), Thomas P. Brown (O Melveny & Myers), Kenneth Chenault (American Express Company), Vijay D Silva (McKinsey and Company), Nicholas Economides (New York University), David S. Evans (Market Platform Dynamics), Robert E. Litan (Brookings and Kaufmann Foundation), Drazen Prelec (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Richard Schmalensee (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

In response to declarations by liberals and even a number of his fellow conservatives that the conservative movement in the United States has become intellectually moribund, Nash (Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal) suggests that part of the problem is that conservatism has lost touch with its own intellectual heritage. This book is thus presented as part of the solution and seeks to reconnect conservatives to the personalities, institutions, ideas, and strategies that led the conservative movement to such prominence in American life over the course of the second half of the 20th century. He offers profiles of such figures as John Chamberlain, Whittaker Chambers, Willmoore Kendall, Russell Kirk, Forrest McDonald, and Rod Dreher. He also presents several chapters each on William F. Buckley Jr. and the National Review, Jewish conservative organizations and publications, and Herbert Hoover (who Nash thinks has been unfairly turned into a "political orphan" when much of his career and ideology should be cla

Once we paid for things with bills, coins, or checks. Today we pay with zeroes and ones—digital entries on credit and debit cards, or electronic messages sent over the Internet. In Moving Money, distinguished analysts explore this trend, its development and likely future, and the ramifications of this transformation. This is a book about money as a medium of exchange—in the past, in the present, but particularly in the future. What forms has money taken over the years? Moreover, how have those means of payment changed in recent years, and how will they develop in the future? And what (if anything) should policymakers do to facilitate those changes, or at least allow them to develop and mature? Brookings economists Robert E. Litan and Martin Neil Baily and a distinguished group of experts dissect these issues and peer into the future of consumer payments. The landscape of the consumer payments industry will be shaped at least in part by public policies. Historically, governments have had monopolies on the manufacture of money. Any form of payment clearly requires trust on the part of both the seller and the buyer, and the government must establish and enforce laws to secure this relationship. More controversial is the issue of whether, and to what extent, government is also needed to protect the market in private sector payments systems. Why do these issues matter? The payments industry is a large and important sector of developed economies. In the United States, private-sector payments providers generate approximately $280 billion a year in revenue, while the government invests substantial resources into making money (minting coins and printing bills) or moving it (via checks and various electronic transfers). And the way we pay for things influences our purchases—what we spend money on, how much we spend, and where we spend it. Thus the future of consumer payments is intertwined with the health of national economies. Contributors: Martin Neil Baily (Brookings), Thomas P. Brown (O Melveny & Myers), Kenneth Chenault (American Express Company), Vijay D Silva (McKinsey and Company), Nicholas Economides (New York University), David S. Evans (Market Platform Dynamics), Robert E. Litan (Brookings and Kaufmann Foundation), Drazen Prelec (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Richard Schmalensee (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

High-resolution digital cameras matched with powerful computers, high-quality scanners, and photo-quality ink-jet printers virtually eliminate the need for film or processing. An introduction to the equipment (both hardware and software) is provided, and detailed information on storage options, lenses, optics, image manipulation and editing, compression of files, focusing capabilities, and outputting images to electronic format (such as the Web) onto photo-quality paper via an ink-jet printer is also covered. Hobbyists and professional photographers alike can utilize this technology to enhance their capabilities in taking and distributing good photographs.

Every era has invented a different idea of the 'classical' to create its own identity. Thus the 'classical' does not concern only the past: it is also concerned with the present and a vision of the future. In this elegant new book, Salvatore Settis traces the ways in which we have related to our 'classical' past, starting with post-modern American skyscrapers and working his way back through our cultural history to the attitudes of the Greeks and Romans themselves. Settis argues that this obsession with cultural decay, ruins and a 'classical' past is specifically European and the product of a collective cultural trauma following the collapse of the Roman Empire. This situation differed from that of the Aztec and Inca empires whose collapse was more sudden and more complete, and from the Chinese Empire which always enjoyed a high degree of continuity. He demonstrates how the idea of the 'classical' has changed over the centuries through an unrelenting decay of 'classicism' and its equally unrelenting rebirth in an altered form. In the Modern Era this emulation of the 'ancients' by the 'moderns' was accompanied by new trends: the increasing belief that the former had now been surpassed by the latter, and an increasing preference for the Greek over the Roman. These conflicting interpretations were as much about the future as they were about the past. No civilization can invent itself if it does not have other societies in other times and other places to act as benchmarks. Settis argues that we will be better equipped to mould new generations for the future once we understand that the 'classical' is not a dead culture we inherited and for which we can take no credit, but something startling that has to be re-created every day and is a powerful spur to understanding the 'other'.

Every era has invented a different idea of the 'classical' to create its own identity. Thus the 'classical' does not concern only the past: it is also concerned with the present and a vision of the future. In this elegant new book, Salvatore Settis traces the ways in which we have related to our 'classical' past, starting with post-modern American skyscrapers and working his way back through our cultural history to the attitudes of the Greeks and Romans themselves. Settis argues that this obsession with cultural decay, ruins and a 'classical' past is specifically European and the product of a collective cultural trauma following the collapse of the Roman Empire. This situation differed from that of the Aztec and Inca empires whose collapse was more sudden and more complete, and from the Chinese Empire which always enjoyed a high degree of continuity. He demonstrates how the idea of the 'classical' has changed over the centuries through an unrelenting decay of 'classicism' and its equally unrelenting rebirth in an altered form. In the Modern Era this emulation of the 'ancients' by the 'moderns' was accompanied by new trends: the increasing belief that the former had now been surpassed by the latter, and an increasing preference for the Greek over the Roman. These conflicting interpretations were as much about the future as they were about the past. No civilization can invent itself if it does not have other societies in other times and other places to act as benchmarks. Settis argues that we will be better equipped to mould new generations for the future once we understand that the 'classical' is not a dead culture we inherited and for which we can take no credit, but something startling that has to be re-created every day and is a powerful spur to understanding the 'other'.

Every era has invented a different idea of the 'classical' to create its own identity. Thus the 'classical' does not concern only the past: it is also concerned with the present and a vision of the future. In this elegant new book, Salvatore Settis traces the ways in which we have related to our 'classical' past, starting with post-modern American skyscrapers and working his way back through our cultural history to the attitudes of the Greeks and Romans themselves. Settis argues that this obsession with cultural decay, ruins and a 'classical' past is specifically European and the product of a collective cultural trauma following the collapse of the Roman Empire. This situation differed from that of the Aztec and Inca empires whose collapse was more sudden and more complete, and from the Chinese Empire which always enjoyed a high degree of continuity. He demonstrates how the idea of the 'classical' has changed over the centuries through an unrelenting decay of 'classicism' and its equally unrelenting rebirth in an altered form. In the Modern Era this emulation of the 'ancients' by the 'moderns' was accompanied by new trends: the increasing belief that the former had now been surpassed by the latter, and an increasing preference for the Greek over the Roman. These conflicting interpretations were as much about the future as they were about the past. No civilization can invent itself if it does not have other societies in other times and other places to act as benchmarks. Settis argues that we will be better equipped to mould new generations for the future once we understand that the 'classical' is not a dead culture we inherited and for which we can take no credit, but something startling that has to be re-created every day and is a powerful spur to understanding the 'other'.

What did we learn from the 12K banner? Is the big idea dead? What would Bill Bernbach think about digital advertising? Why are the Swedes so bloody good at it? How can you shape the future of digital advertising? Is peep culture the new pop culture? What does the agency of the future look like? All these questions and far more are covered inside Digital Advertising: Past, Present, and Future, a collection of essays from 24 Digital Creative Directors and business leaders. Rory Sutherland, President of the IPA and Vice-Chairman, Ogilvy Group UK describes it as 'An A-list group of authors writing brilliantly and affectionately about the subjects they know best."

We live in a world saturated by futures. Our lives are constructed around ideas and images about the future that are as full and as flawed as our understandings of the past. This book is a conceptual toolkit for thinking about the forms and functions that the future takes. Exploring links between panic and nostalgia, waiting and utopia, technology and messianism, prophecy and trauma, it brings together critical meditations on the social, cultural, and intellectual forces that create narratives and practices of the future. The prognosticators, speculators, prophets, and visionaries have their say here, but the emphasis is on small narratives and forgotten conjunctures, on the connections between expectation and experience in everyday life.In tightly linked studies, the contributors excavate forgotten and emergent futures of art, religion, technology, economics, and politics. They trace hidden histories of science fiction, futurism, and millennialism and break down barriers between far-flung cultural spheres. From the boardrooms of Silicon Valley to the forests of Java and from the literary salons of Tokyo to the roadside cafés of the Nevada desert, the authors stitch together the disparate images and stories of futures past and present. Histories of the Future is further punctuated by three interludes: a thought-provoking game that invites players to fashion future narratives of their own, a metafiction by renowned novelist Jonathan Lethem, and a remarkable graphic research tool: a timeline of timelines.Contributors. Sasha Archibald, Susan Harding, Jamer Hunt, Pamela Jackson, Susan Lepselter, Jonathan Lethem, Joseph Masco, Christopher Newfield, Elizabeth Pollman, Vicente Rafael, Daniel Rosenberg, Miryam Sas, Kathleen Stewart, Anna Tsing

This book, "Engineering Our Digital Future," plus a broad spectrum of supplemental materials, classroom technology, and a comprehensive instructor training program--work in concert to motivate users to learn about the infinite possibilities of technology and engineering in today's world. Developed by a national team led by Southern Methodist University and Texas Instruments, this book is the first of its kind in the country. Chapter topics include: The World of Modern Engineering; Creating Digital Music; Making Digital Images; Math You Can See; Digitizing the World; Coding Information for Storage and Secrecy; Communicating with Ones and Zeros; Networks from the Telegraph to the Internet; and The Big Picture. A new outlook into the possibilities of technology and engineering for beginner engineers.

For more than twenty years, George Lucas and the technical wizards at ILM have literally changed the face of moviemaking with their stunning, often unbelievable, visual effects. Industrial Light & Magic: Into the Digital Realm chronicles ILM's second monumental decade - from 1986 through the midnineties - and includes a special report on the latest groundbreaking visual effects in the 20th Anniversary Special Edition of Star Wars: A New Hope. During this seminal period, ILM virtually re-defined visual effects and blazed a trail into the digital realm. With more than six hundred lavish full-color photographs, this fascinating book takes you behind the camera and into the rarely seen workshops, offering an amazing look at the men and women who create movie magic. We follow the intricate crafts of matte painting, model making, and optical compositing as they are transformed into digitally driven systems, and we track the contributions of model and creature makers, animation specialists and optical technicians, and the unsung stage hands and pyrotechnic experts.

From the beloved author of Family and A Piece of Mine comes a dazzling new collection of stories featuring ordinary women who discover that love sometimes comes when you least expect it. Vinnie is an overworked and self-sacrificing single mother who gets a second chance at love and independence, in "The Eagle Flies." In "A Shooting Star" a happily married mother of two laments the fate of her beautiful friend Lorene, whose naivete about desire has deadly consequences. In "A Filet of Soul," Luella's luck soon changes when her mother leaves her a modest inheritance, but not as soon as she initially imagines. And in "The Lost and Found," Irene confronts her womanizing boyfriend with the one piece of information that will bring him to his knees. Bursting with earthy wisdom and humor, these warmly engaging tales are a testament to Cooper's gifts as a storyteller.

A great adjustment in human affairs is underway. Political, commercial and cultural life is changing from the centralized, hierarchical and standardized structures of the industrial age to something radically different: the economy of the emerging digital era. A History of the Internet and the Digital Future tells the story of the development of the Internet from the 1950s to the present, and examines how the balance of power has shifted between the individual and the state in the areas of censorship, copyright infringement, intellectual freedom and terrorism and warfare. Johnny Ryan explains how the Internet has revolutionized political campaigns; how the development of the World Wide Web enfranchised a new online population of assertive, niche consumers; and how the dot-com bust taught smarter firms to capitalize on the power of digital artisans.In the coming years, platforms such as the iPhone and Android rise or fall depending on their treading the line between proprietary control and open innovation. The trends of the past may hold out hope for the record and newspaper industry. From the government-controlled systems of the ColdWar to today’s move towards cloud computing, user-driven content and the new global commons, this book reveals the trends that are shaping the businesses, politics, and media of the digital future.

The invention of writing was one of the most important technological, cultural, and sociological breakthroughs in human history. With the printed book, information and ideas could disseminate more widely and effectively than ever before—and in some cases, affect and redirect the sway of history. Today, nearly one million books are published each year. But is the era of the book as we know it—a codex of bound pages—coming to an end? And if it is, should we celebrate its demise and the creation of a democratic digital future, or mourn an irreplaceable loss? The digital age is revolutionizing the information landscape. Already, more books have been scanned and digitized than were housed in the great library in Alexandria, making available millions of texts for a curious reader at the click of a button, and electronic book sales are growing exponentially. Will this revolution in the delivery of information and entertainment make for more transparent and far-reaching dissemination or create a monopolistic stranglehold? In The Case for Books, Robert Darnton, an intellectual pioneer in the field of the history of the book and director of Harvard University's Library, offers an in-depth examination of the book from its earliest beginnings to its shifting role today in popular culture, commerce, and the academy. As an author, editorial advisor, and publishing entrepreneur, Darnton is a unique authority on the life and role of the book in society. This book is a wise work of scholarship—one that requires readers to carefully consider how the digital revolution will broadly affect the marketplace of ideas.