BiblioVault - Books about Approach

Approach to Final Victory

America's Rainbow Division in the Saint Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne Offensives

Robert Thompson

Westholme Publishing, 2023

The 42nd Division, or “Rainbow Division” as it was known popularly, was composed entirely of unproven National Guard units hailing from twenty-six different states and the District of Columbia. For that reason, there were many who thought the division would never see combat when it deployed to France in October 1917. However, the division would spend 164 days in combat during World War I, a number exceeded by only two other American divisions. Despite the doubts of General John J. Pershing and many senior American officers regarding their ability to serve in combat, the division would come to be viewed by the Allies and their German opponents as one of the best combat divisions in the American Expeditionary Forces. As a result, the Rainbow Division was chosen to lead the American offensive in the Saint Mihiel salient, the first offensive planned and led by the American army in World War I. The division went on to play a critical role in the final offensive of the war in the Meuse-Argonne, where these battle-hardened National Guardsmen were the first Allied unit to finally break through the main German lines of resistance, the heavily fortified Kriemhilde Stellung, which had stopped assaults by three other American divisions.
Approach to Final Victory: America's Rainbow Division in the Saint Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne Offensives by historian Robert Thompson, chronicles the efforts of the Rainbow Division during these final two Allied offensives that were key to the ultimate Allied victory. Based on letters, journals, action reports, and unit histories, the challenges, set-backs, and accomplishments of the division stand as a fitting symbol of American valor and sacrifice during the “war to end all wars.”

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Biomechanics

An Approach to Vertebrate Biology

Carl Gans

University of Michigan Press, 1980

Offers an approach to the study of functional anatomy

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Economics as a Social Science

An Approach to Nonautistic Theory

Andrew M. Kamarck

University of Michigan Press, 2002

Economics as a Social Science is a highly readable critique of economic theory, based on a wide range of research, that endeavors to restore economics to its proper role as a social science. Contrary to conventional economic theory, which assumes that people have no free will, this book instead bases economics on the realistic assumption that human beings can choose; that we are complex beings affected by emotion, custom, habit, and reason; and that our behavior varies with circumstances and times. It embraces the findings of history, psychology, and other social sciences and the insights from great literature on human behavior as opposed to the rigidity set by mathematical axioms that define how economics is understood and practiced today.
Andrew M. Kamarck demonstrates that only rough accuracy is attainable in economic measurement, and that understanding an economy requires knowledge from other disciplines. The canonical hypotheses of economics (perfect rationality, self-interest, equilibrium) are shown to be inadequate (and in the case of "equilibrium" to be counterproductive to understanding the forces that dominate the economy), and more satisfactory assumptions provided. The market is shown to work imperfectly and to require appropriate institutions to perform its function reasonably well. Further, Kamarck argues that self-interest does not always lead to helping the general interest.
Economics as a Social Science examines and revises the fundamental assumptions of economics. Because it avoids jargon and explains terms carefully, it will be of interest to economics majors as well as to graduate students of economics and other social sciences, and social scientists working in government and the private sector.
Andrew M. Kamarck is former Director, Economic Development Institute, the World Bank.

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Essays in Theory and History

An Approach to the Social Sciences

Melvin Richter

Harvard University Press, 1970

Grammars of Approach

Landscape, Narrative, and the Linguistic Picturesque

Cynthia Wall

University of Chicago Press, 2019

In Grammars of Approach, Cynthia Wall offers a close look at changes in perspective in spatial design, language, and narrative across the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that involve, literally and psychologically, the concept of “approach.” In architecture, the term “approach” changed in that period from a verb to a noun, coming to denote the drive from the lodge at the entrance of an estate “through the most interesting part of the grounds,” as landscape designer Humphrey Repton put it. The shift from the long straight avenue to the winding approach, Wall shows, swung the perceptual balance away from the great house onto the personal experience of the visitor. At the same time, the grammatical and typographical landscape was shifting in tandem, away from objects and Things (and capitalized common Nouns) to the spaces in between, like punctuation and the “lesser parts of speech”. The implications for narrative included new patterns of syntactical architecture and the phenomenon of free indirect discourse. Wall examines the work of landscape theorists such as Repton, John Claudius Loudon, and Thomas Whately alongside travel narratives, topographical views, printers’ manuals, dictionaries, encyclopedias, grammars, and the novels of Defoe, Richardson, Burney, Radcliffe, and Austen to reveal a new landscaping across disciplines—new grammars of approach in ways of perceiving and representing the world in both word and image.

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Listening Deeply

An Approach to Understanding and Consulting in Organizational Culture, Second Edition

Howard F. Stein

University of Missouri Press, 2017

Listening deeply is the foundation of all effective organizational management, research, and consulting. This book explores the many aspects of attentive listening through storytelling and includes examples of organizational case studies. In Stein’s practice, listening deeply is an attitude evoked by the psychoanalytic concept of hovering attention—a careful attending to the person or group one is trying to help and an equally careful attending to how one is hearing these others. The listener’s own feelings are as crucially diagnostic as what the consultant observes in other people.

This new edition of Listening Deeply updates historical context, theory, method, and organizational stories. A psychodynamic orientation informs much of the book and the language Stein uses is direct. His lessons are useful to the manager in any kind of organization, as well as practitioners of psychology, sociology, business management, medicine, and education.

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Marlowe’s “Agonists”

An Approach to the Ambiguity of His Plays

Christopher G. Fanta

Harvard University Press, 1970

In his closely argued essay Christopher Fanta maintains that the ambiguity in Marlowe's plays may well result from the duality of Marlowe's thought. Fiery protagonists like Tamburlaine, who are bent on overpowering the limitations of society and nature, are set against what Fanta terms the "agonists": a handful of minor, virtuous characters who by their actions and interaction with the hero express Marlowe's "other," muted voice. Fanta analyzes five "agonists": Zenocrate and Olympia in Tamburlaine, Abigail in The Jew of Malta, Prince Edward in Edward II, and the Old Man in Dr. Faustus.

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Medium, Messenger, Transmission

An Approach to Media Philosophy

Sybille Krämer

Amsterdam University Press, 2015

This rich study provides a comprehensive introduction to media philosophy while offering a new perspective on the concept and function of transmission media in all systems of exchange. Krämer uses the figure of the messenger as a key metaphor, examining a diverse range of transmission events, including the circulation of money, translation of languages, angelic visitations, spread of infectious diseases, and processes of transference and counter-transference that occur during psychoanalysis.

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The Novel in Motion

An Approach to Modern Fiction

Richard Pearce

The Ohio State University Press, 1900

Shaping the Moral Life

An Approach to Moral Theology

Klaus Demmer, MSC. James F. Keenan, SJ, Editor. Translated by Roberto Dell'Oro. Foreword by Thomas Kopfensteiner

Georgetown University Press, 2000

Although he is one of the most influential Catholic theologians in Europe, very few of Klaus Demmer's writings are available in English. This translation of his well-known work on moral theology introduces Demmer's thought to English-speaking audiences.

In an original synthesis of scholastic and continental philosophy, Demmer brings the Catholic moral tradition into conversation with contemporary philosophical schools—transcendental, hermeneutical, and analytical—to fashion a moral theology in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council. He shows the richness of the neoscholastic tradition in shaping and being shaped by our contemporary self-understanding.

A complete bibliography of Demmer's works will assist readers in seeking out more of his writings.

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Standby

An Approach to Theatrical Design

Joshua Langman

Southern Illinois University Press, 2022

Named an Outstanding Academic Title: Theater and Dance, 2023 Choice Reviews

A groundbreaking philosophy of design for the stage

Standby proposes a practical philosophy of contemporary theatrical design that addresses all design disciplines, all theatrical collaborators, and all forms of theatre, from the traditional to the avant-garde. In a field that is too often dismissed as purely technical, Joshua Langman celebrates design as a transformative force with the power to elevate a performance and enable it to resonate beyond the bounds of its physical production. Beginning with the proposition that design contributes essential layers of meaning to an experience, Standby argues for a unique approach centered on the creation of revelatory theatrical moments.

In a mission to illuminate the soul of the craft, Langman investigates the purposes of design, details the elements of a production concept, uncovers the mechanics of creating meaning, explores the relationship of theatrical design to fine art and art history, and offers practical guidance on designing productions. He also considers what has changed as designers have embraced digital technology and suggests fifteen concrete methods for preserving the magic of live theatre in a digital age. Blending scholarship and storytelling, personal experience and contrarian wisdom, Standby challenges theatre-makers to harness the rich dramatic potential of theatrical design.

For additional information and supplemental materials, please visit www.standbybook.com.

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