Natalie Portman is only 20 years old, but already she has co-starred in nine films with everyone from Woody Allen to Al Pacino and is considered the best young actress in Hollywood. In the first biography of this dynamic star, Dickerson examines the charm and wit of her professional persona, while revealing the emotional life of the real Portman.
Providing an in-depth look at Bosnia, this title examines the country's ethnic conflict and history and the difficulties it faces in implementing the terms of the peace agreement. It examines its political structure, religious communities and economics and social and cultural make-up.
China invented paper, printing, the compass and the seismograph. China was among the first to harness fossil fuels and map the stars. And then, about 500 years ago, it lost its innovative edge. Now China hopes once again to lead the world in creativity. In this five-part series, The World’s Asia Correspondent Mary Kay Magistad examines the history of Chinese innovation. Winner of a 2009 Sigma Delta Chi Award for Journalism.
Volume 1 of The History of Literary Criticism focuses on criticism in the Classical period up to about A.D. 325. This first survey examines the beginnings of critical consciousness in Greece, including the functions of poetry and the role of poets in early Greek society, and continues with authoritative discussion of the critical writings of Aristophanes, Plato, Aristotle and Hellenistic scholars. It examines Roman figures including Horace, Cicero, Quintilian and Tacitus, and also considers Greek critics of the Augustan and imperial periods such as Longinus, and the neo-platonic, Christian and grammatical writers of later antiquity.
From The Epic of Gilgemesh to Jaws and Schindler's List, Christopher Booker examines in detail the stories that underlie literature and the plots that are basic to story telling through the ages. In this magisterial work he examines the plots of films, opera libretti and the contemporary novel and short story. Underlying the stories he examines are Seven Basic Plots: rags to riches; the quest; voyage and return; the hero as monster; rebirth and so on. Booker shows that the images and stories serve a far deeper and more significant purpose in our lives than we have realised.
