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36 books match the query 'Secrets'

cover of Aristotle and the Secrets of Life: An Aristotle Detective Novel

Aristotle and the Secrets of Life

An Aristotle Detective Novel

Margaret Doody

University of Chicago Press, 2014

Murder and mayhem may seem like unreasonable company for Aristotle, one of the founding minds of Western philosophy. But in the skilled hands of Margaret Doody, the pairing could not be more logical. With her Aristotle Detective novels, Margaret Doody brings a Holmesian hero to the bloodied streets of ancient Greece, trading the pipe and deerstalker of Sherlock for the woolen chiton and sandals of Aristotle. Replete with suspense, historical detail, and humor, and complemented by an ever-growing cast of characters and vivid descriptions of the ancient world, Doody’s mysteries are as much lively takes on the figures and forms of the classics as they are classic whodunits in their own right.

With Aristotle and the Secrets of Life, tensions between the Athenians and the Makedonians—followers of another of Aristotle’s former students, Alexander the Great—draw our heroes across the Aegean Sea. Even as Aristotle and Stephanos escape from pirates, uncover conspiracy, and face the horrors of war, Aristotle finds time to discuss his studies of the natural world in this gripping tale of their quest into darkness.   
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cover of Books of Secrets: Natural Philosophy in England, 1550-1600

Books of Secrets

Natural Philosophy in England, 1550-1600

Allison Kavey

University of Illinois Press, 2007

How cultural categories shaped--and were shaped by--new ideas about controlling nature Ranging from alchemy to necromancy, "books of secrets" offered medieval readers an affordable and accessible collection of knowledge about the natural world. Allison Kavey's study traces the cultural relevance of these books and also charts their influence on the people who read them. Citing the importance of printers in choosing the books' contents, she points out how these books legitimized manipulating nature, thereby expanding cultural categories, such as masculinity, femininity, gentleman, lady, and midwife, to include the willful command of the natural world.
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cover of Celebrity Chefs of New Jersey: Their Stories, Recipes, and Secrets

Celebrity Chefs of New Jersey

Their Stories, Recipes, and Secrets

Teresa Politano

Rutgers University Press, 2010

One demanding New Jersey chef once tied his cooks to the stove by their apron strings. Another was such a finicky eater as a child, he refused to allow his cereal to touch his milk. One was kissed by Fidel Castro, another played onstage with Todd Rundgren. Celebrity Chefs of New Jersey peeks into the kitchens and the lives of some of the most famous chefs in the Garden State, where foodies and other gourmands will discover passions, kitchen secrets, life lessons, and signature recipes.

Not so long ago, perhaps even just at the turn of this century, it was easy to lament the lack of sophisticated food in New Jersey. Oh sure, a few restaurants always sparkled, but, for the most part, New Jerseyans looked across at the bright lights of the big city, wistfully yearning for a table in glamorous Manhattan. Now, however, the most sought- after tables are right here and we have the best seats in the house, made even sweeter perhaps because they're our own little secret. We can dine frequently and dine well, with a smug sense that if only New Yorkers knew, they'd be looking across the river wishing they were us.

In Celebrity Chefs of New Jersey, Teresa Politano profiles Craig Shelton, the chef who crystallized New Jersey's place in culinary history with his legendary Ryland Inn, along with other chefs, telling their personal stories of both creativity and survival. Some of these men and women rose from humble or difficult childhoods to fame in the food world. Others were not only talented but lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. Their stories are arranged into three categories: legends, stars, and chefs to watch, and then topped off with a sweet surprise finish. Politano includes photographs, cooking secrets, and some of their sought-after signature recipes that are sophisticated but manageable for the skilled home chef.
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cover of Discovering the Secrets of Soft-Paste Porcelain at the Saint-Cloud Manufactory, ca. 1690-1766

Discovering the Secrets of Soft-Paste Porcelain at the Saint-Cloud Manufactory, ca. 1690-1766

Bertrand Rondot

Bard Graduate Center, 1999

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cover of Egyptian Oedipus: Athanasius Kircher and the Secrets of Antiquity

Egyptian Oedipus

Athanasius Kircher and the Secrets of Antiquity

Daniel Stolzenberg

University of Chicago Press, 2013

A contemporary of Descartes and Newton, Athanasius Kircher, S. J. (1601/2–80), was one of Europe’s most inventive and versatile scholars in the baroque era. He published more than thirty works in fields as diverse as astronomy, magnetism, cryptology, numerology, geology, and music. But Kircher is most famous—or infamous—for his quixotic attempt to decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs and reconstruct the ancient traditions they encoded. In 1655, after more than two decades of toil, Kircher published his solution to the hieroglyphs, Oedipus Aegyptiacus, a work that has been called “one of the most learned monstrosities of all times.” Here Daniel Stolzenberg presents a new interpretation of Kircher’s hieroglyphic studies, placing them in the context of seventeenth-century scholarship on paganism and Oriental languages.
           
Situating Kircher in the social world of baroque Rome, with its scholars, artists, patrons, and censors, Stolzenberg shows how Kircher’s study of ancient paganism depended on the circulation of texts, artifacts, and people between Christian and Islamic civilizations. Along with other participants in the rise of Oriental studies, Kircher aimed to revolutionize the study of the past by mastering Near Eastern languages and recovering ancient manuscripts hidden away in the legendary libraries of Cairo and Damascus. The spectacular flaws of his scholarship have fostered an image of Kircher as an eccentric anachronism, a throwback to the Renaissance hermetic tradition. Stolzenberg argues against this view, showing how Kircher embodied essential tensions of a pivotal phase in European intellectual history, when pre-Enlightenment scholars pioneered modern empirical methods of studying the past while still working within traditional frameworks, such as biblical history and beliefs about magic and esoteric wisdom.
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cover of Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature

Frankenstein

Penetrating the Secrets of Nature

Lederer, Susan E

Rutgers University Press, 2002

As science penetrates the secrets of nature, with each discovery generating new questions, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein will sound its note of warning. Many scientific developments have provoked references to Frankenstein, a story that, for nearly two centuries, has gripped our imaginations and haunted our nightmares. How can society balance the benefits of medical discoveries against the ethical or spiritual questions posed?

Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature accompanies a traveling exhibit of the same name. This lavishly illustrated volume begins by highlighting Shelley's novel and the context in which she conceived it. It next focuses on the redefinition of the Frankenstein myth in popular culture. Here, the fate of the monster becomes a moral lesson illustrating the punishment for ambitious scientists who seek to usurp the place of God by creating life. The final section examines the continuing power of the Frankenstein story to articulate present-day concerns raised by new developments in biomedicine such as cloning and xenografting (the use of animal organs in human bodies), and the role scientists and citizens play in determining acceptable limits of scientific and medical advances.

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cover of Graceland Cemetery: Chicago Stories, Symbols, and Secrets

Graceland Cemetery

Chicago Stories, Symbols, and Secrets

Adam Selzer

University of Illinois Press, 2022

Chosen for the 2024 Illinois Reads Program by the Illinois Reading Council

One of Chicago’s landmark attractions, Graceland Cemetery chronicles the city’s sprawling history through the stories of its people. Local historian and Graceland tour guide Adam Selzer presents ten walking tours covering almost the entirety of the cemetery grounds. While nodding to famous Graceland figures from Marshall Field to Ernie Banks to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Selzer also leads readers past the vaults, obelisks, and other markers that call attention to less recognized Chicagoans like:

  • Jessie Williams de Priest, the Black wife of a congressman whose 1929 invitation to a White House tea party set off a storm of controversy;
  • Engineer and architect Fazlur Khan, the Bangladeshi American who revived the city's skyscraper culture;
  • The still-mysterious Kate Warn (listed as Warn on her tombstone), the United States’ first female private detective.

Filled with photographs and including detailed maps of each tour route, Graceland Cemetery is an insider's guide to one of Chicago's great outdoor destinations for city lore and history.

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cover of Kept Secret: The Half-Truth in Nonfiction

Kept Secret

The Half-Truth in Nonfiction

Jen Hirt

Michigan State University Press, 2017

Creative nonfiction writers wrestle constantly with the boundaries of creative license—what to reveal, when to reveal it, and how best to do it. While the truth may inspire us to make confident assertions, secrets, lies, and half-truths inspire us to delve further into our own writing to discover the heart of the story. The pieces in this collection feature essayists who do this type of detective work. Each essay contains a secret, lie, or half-truth—some of these are revealed by the author, but others remain buried. Ranging from the deep family secret to the little white lie, from the shocking to the humorous, and from the straightforward revelation to the slanted half-truth, these essays ask us to appreciate the magnitude of keeping a secret. They also ask us to consider the obstacles writers must overcome if they want to write about secrets in their own lives and the lives of others. In short interviews following each essay the contributors discuss craft, ethics, creativity, and how they eventually decided to reveal—or not reveal—a secret.
 
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cover of No Species Is an Island: Bats, Cacti, and Secrets of the Sonoran Desert

No Species Is an Island

Bats, Cacti, and Secrets of the Sonoran Desert

Theodore H. Fleming; Illustrations by Kim Kanoa Duffek

University of Arizona Press, 2017

In the darkness of the star-studded desert, bats and moths feed on the nectar of night-blooming cactus flowers. By day, birds and bees do the same, taking to blooms for their sweet sustenance. In return these special creatures pol­linate the equally intriguing plants in an ecological circle of sustainability.

The Sonoran Desert is the most biologically diverse desert in the world. Four species of columnar cacti, including the iconic saguaro and organ pipe, are among its most conspicuous plants. No Species Is an Island describes Theodore H. Fleming’s eleven-year study of the pollination biology of these species at a site he named Tortilla Flats in Sonora, Mexico, near Kino Bay.

Now Fleming shares the surprising results of his intriguing work. Among the novel findings are one of the world’s rarest plant-breeding sys­tems in a giant cactus; the ability of the organ pipe cactus to produce fruit with another species’ pollen; the highly specialized moth-cactus pollination system of the senita cactus; and the amazing lifestyle of the lesser long-nosed bat, the major nocturnal pollinator of three of these species.

These discoveries serve as a primer on how to conduct ecological re­search, and they offer important conservation lessons for us all. Fleming high­lights the preciousness of the ecological web of our planet—Tortilla Flats is a place where cacti and migratory bats and birds connect such far-flung habitats as Mexico’s tropical dry forest, the Sonoran Desert, and the temper­ate rain forests of southeastern Alaska. Fleming offers an insightful look at how field ecologists work and at the often big surprises that come from looking carefully at a natural world where no species stands alone.
 
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cover of Prairie Keepers, The, 2nd ed: Secrets of the Zumwalt

Prairie Keepers, The, 2nd ed

Secrets of the Zumwalt

Marcy Houle

Oregon State University Press, 2007

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cover of Secrets I Won't Take with Me: Home, War, and the Struggle for Peace in Israel

Secrets I Won't Take with Me

Home, War, and the Struggle for Peace in Israel

Yossi Beilin

University of Alabama Press, 2025

An Israeli political leader’s riveting first-hand account of pivotal moments from recent Israeli history, including the Oslo Peace Accords, the founding of the Birthright Initiative, the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the rise of the Israeli far right, and more

In Secrets I Won't Take with Me, Yossi Beilin, a key Israeli political and ministerial leader, offers an intimate and candid memoir that chronicles pivotal events in the nation’s recent history. From the crucible of its founding to the complexities of the modern era, Beilin reveals an insider’s perspective and previously undocumented insights about the events that have and continue to shape Israel.

Beginning his career as an academic and a journalist, Beilin became the spokesperson of the Labor Party in 1977. Among his many career highlights include the chairmanship of the Meretz-Yachad Party, Minister of Justice, Minister of Religious Affairs, and Deputy Finance Minister, and perhaps most significantly, as Deputy Foreign Minister during the Israel-PLO Oslo Peace Accords. As a key architect of the Oslo Peace Accords, he shares unprecedented details of the negotiations that defined an era.

Beyond diplomacy, Beilin illuminates his role in shaping Israel’s identity, from steering Israel away from its alliance with apartheid South Africa to the foundation of the influential Birthright program. With unflinching honesty, Beilin navigates the triumphs and tragedies of a nation, from the euphoria of the Six-Day War to the heartbreak of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination. A deeply personal memoir of one man’s life interwoven with a nation’s, Beilin’s stunning account of his career serves as a masterful tour d’horizon of Israel’s recent past and evolving future.

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cover of Secrets and Rivals: Wartime Letters and the Parents I Never Knew

Secrets and Rivals

Wartime Letters and the Parents I Never Knew

R. Bruce Larson

University of Missouri Press, 2015

Ruth Larson saved nearly 700 letters she and her husband Bob exchanged during World War II. Opening the box while his mother lay dying, her son Bruce expected to find commonplace details of his parents’ early life together. He instead discovered a story of deception, obsession, and betrayal.

Reading through the letters, he is drawn into his parents’ courtship amid the hardships of separation and war. Beyond the tumultuous romance, Larson finds that he barely recognizes his father, whom he knew only as distant and impassive. He uncovers shocking truths about his mother, Ruth, whom family lore had pigeonholed as sweetly pious.

At the time of the letters, Bob is a young Coast Guard clerk fighting off depression with thoughts of his dream girl back home. Back in Minnesota, Ruth passes the days adrift in romantic fantasies and liaisons with local admirers. Bob’s suspicions about Ruth and his obsession with her from afar threaten the young man’s fragile hold on his sanity, but he will not give her up. Decades later, their son comes to feel a tenderness for both his parents and to understand how their losses, fears, and reluctance can transform and refashion family bonds.

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cover of Secrets and Truths: Ethnography in the Archive of Romania's Secret Police

Secrets and Truths

Ethnography in the Archive of Romania's Secret Police

Katherine Verdery

Central European University Press, 2014

Nothing in Soviet-style communism was as shrouded in mystery as its secret police. Its paid employees were known to few and their actual numbers remain uncertain. Its informers and collaborators operated clandestinely under pseudonyms and met their officers in secret locations. Its files were inaccessible, even to most party members. The people the secret police recruited or interrogated were threatened so effectively that some never told even their spouses, and many have held their tongues to this day, long after the regimes fell.With the end of communism, many of the newly established governments—among them Romania's—opened their secret police archives. From those files, as well as her personal memories, the author has carried out historical ethnography of the Romanian Securitate. Secrets and Truths is not only of historical interest but has implications for understanding the rapidly developing "security state" of the neoliberal present.
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cover of Secrets from the Center of the World

Secrets from the Center of the World

Joy Harjo and Stephen E. Strom

University of Arizona Press, 1989

"My house is the red earth; it could be the center of the world."

This is Navajo country, a land of mysterious and delicate beauty. "Stephen Strom's photographs lead you to that place," writes Joy Harjo. "The camera eye becomes a space you can move through into the powerful landscapes that he photographs. The horizon may shift and change all around you, but underneath it is the heart with which we move." Harjo's prose poems accompany these images, interpreting each photograph as a story that evokes the spirit of the Earth. Images and words harmonize to evoke the mysteries of what the Navajo call the center of the world.
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cover of Secrets in a Dead Fish: The Spying Game in the First World War

Secrets in a Dead Fish

The Spying Game in the First World War

Melanie King

Bodleian Library Publishing, 2014

How did German intelligence agents use a dead fish to convey critical information to their operatives? What did an advertisement for a dog in the Times have to do with the movement of British troops into Egypt? And why did British officers suddenly become suspicious of the trousers hanging on a Belgian woman’s washing line?

Throughout World War I, spymasters and their networks of secret agents developed many clever—and sometimes comical—methods of covert communication. Stacks of bread in a bakery window, puffs of smoke from a chimney, and even woolen pullovers were all used to pass on secret messages that were decipherable only to the well-trained eye. Drawing on the memoirs of eight spies, Melanie King divulges these and other tricks of the trade while sharing details from their astonishing stories. Among her informants are British intelligence officers working undercover in Germany and France, including a former Metropolitan police officer who once hunted Jack the Ripper; a German secret service officer codenamed “Agricola;” an American newspaperman; and an Austrian agent who disguised himself during his career as everything from a Jewish peddler to a Russian officer.

A fascinating compendium of clever and long-forgotten ruses—interspersed with the stories of the spies themselves—Secrets in a Dead Fish sheds new light on the shadowy world of Great War espionage.
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cover of Secrets of Life with Brachial Plexus Palsy

Secrets of Life with Brachial Plexus Palsy

Written by Denise Justice; Illustrated by Susan Eatmon; Edited by Holly Wagner

Michigan Publishing Services, 2020

In this book, Marie is just a normal little girl except that one of her arms is different!
 
Secrets of Life with Brachial Plexus Palsy is the story of a baby girl who grows up with dreams and ambitions like everybody else. Some of her dreams are to play like other children, to show others that there is nothing that she cannot do, and to pursue any career that she chooses when she grows up. Life with this condition can be challenging, and as the years pass, Marie uncovers secrets that allow her to overcome the stigma of her Brachial Plexus Palsy – secrets she would like to share with you…
 
Let Marie show you that living life with Brachial Plexus Palsy is an exciting journey!
 
 
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cover of Secrets of Responsibility

Secrets of Responsibility

Jacques Derrida

University of Chicago Press, 2027

Jacques Derrida on the problem of secrecy, the first in a ten-seminar series on questions of responsibility. 

Delivered at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris during the 1991–92 academic year, Secrets of Responsibility is the first of ten seminars given by Jacques Derrida under the umbrella “Questions of Responsibility,” a cycle that includes Hospitality, Perjury and Pardon, Death Penalty, and The Beast and the Sovereign—each also published by the University of Chicago Press. 

In this seminar, Derrida asks a basic question—what is a secret?—which he then explores across scientific, technical, social, political, and religious domains. Over twelve sessions, we are treated to analyses of industrial, state, military, professional, and religious secrets as well as secret societies and secret police. Derrida also tackles secrecy in literary fiction (especially in Melville, James, Poe, and Baudelaire) and philosophical texts (including Freud, Kant, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Patočka, Nietzsche, Levinas, and others). The result is a set of profound and surprising insights delivered as only Derrida can.

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cover of Secrets of the English War Bow

Secrets of the English War Bow

Hugh D. H. Soar

Westholme Publishing, 2010

A Complete Recreation of the Deadliest Medieval Arm
Dominating medieval battlefields for more than two centuries but requiring long and arduous practice to command, the English war bow and its battle shaft are the symbols of the rise of British power in Europe. Despite being crafted for hundreds of years and wielded by generations of archers, no example of the war bow—the military version of the longbow—exists, outside of a single broken limb. Now for the first time, expert craftsmen use all available evidence including applied archaeology to unlock the secrets of the English war bow. Historian Hugh D. H. Soar is joined by Mark Stretton, master blacksmith, and Joseph Gibbs, bowyer, in order to demonstrate how a war bow and its associated arrow heads and shafts may have been constructed and used. In addition to showing the complete manufacture of a bow from tree selection to stringing and how specialized arrowheads were forged and attached to shafts, Secrets of the English War Bowprovides information on the actual performance of the war bow, including the bow's effectiveness against various materials and, for the first time, its use against moving targets, since bows were often drawn against mounted soldiers. Armed with this new information, Soar provides an analysis of both successes and failures of the war bow in several important battles. Illustrated in color and black and white, Secrets of the English War Bowprovides an invaluable service for those interested in medieval military history, archery, and technology.

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cover of Secrets of the Great Ocean Liners

Secrets of the Great Ocean Liners

John G. Sayers

Bodleian Library Publishing, 2020

In the heyday of ocean travel—between the late nineteenth century and World War II—ocean liners were a home away from home. Passengers prepared for voyages that could last as long as three months, and shipping companies ensured their guests were as comfortable as possible, providing entertainment, dining, sleeping quarters, and smoking lounges to accommodate passengers of all ages and budgets. Secrets of the Great Ocean Liners leads the reader through each stage of ocean liner travel, from booking a ticket and choosing a cabin to shore excursions, on-board games, social events, and even romances. This book dives into a vast, unique collection of ephemera to reveal the scandals, glamour, challenges, and tragedies of ocean liner travel. Shipping companies produced glitzy brochures, sailing schedules, voyage logs, passenger lists, postcards, and menus, all of which help us to enjoy daily life on board. Diaries, letters, and journals written by passengers also reveal a host of fascinating insights into the experience of traveling by sea.
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cover of Secrets of the Greatest Snow on Earth, Second Edition: Weather, Climate Change, and Finding Deep Powder in Utah's Wasatch Mountains and Around the World

Secrets of the Greatest Snow on Earth, Second Edition

Weather, Climate Change, and Finding Deep Powder in Utah's Wasatch Mountains and Around the World

Jim Steenburgh

Utah State University Press, 2023

Utah has long claimed to have the greatest snow on Earth—the state itself has even trademarked the phrase. In Secrets of the Greatest Snow on Earth, Jim Steenburgh investigates Wasatch weather, exposing the myths, explaining the reality, and revealing how and why Utah’s powder lives up to its reputation. Steenburgh also examines ski and snowboard regions beyond Utah, providing a meteorological guide to mountain weather and snow climates around the world.

Chapters explore mountain weather, avalanches and snow safety, historical accounts of weather events and snow conditions, and the basics of climate and weather forecasting. In this second edition, Steenburgh explains what creates the best snow for skiing and snowboarding using accurate and accessible language and 150 color photographs and illustrations, making Secrets of the Greatest Snow on Earth a helpful tool for planning vacations and staying safe during mountain adventures.

This edition is updated with two new chapters covering microclimates and climate change in greater depth. Steenburgh addresses the declining snowpack and the future of snow across the western United States, as well as the declining snow and ice in several regions of the world—the European Alps in particular. Snowriders, weather enthusiasts, meteorologists, students of snow science, and anyone who dreams of deep powder and bluebird skies will want to get their gloves on this new edition of Secrets of the Greatest Snow on Earth.

Praise for the first edition:
“Everything you always wanted to know about how snow forms and how to follow forecasts so you see
how much an”d where is in the book. It’s a must-have for any fan of snow, sure to get you excited about
winter, and give you a bevy of conversation topics for the chairlift ride.”

—Utah Adventure Journal

“For backcountry enthusiasts that find themselves infatuated with weather patterns, snow-water
equivalents, microclimates, and Utah, this book is a dream come true.”

—The Backcountry Skiing Blog

“Steenburgh shares a career’s worth of knowledge in this book. His love of both snow science and skiing
is obvious, and he adds humor and personality to the scientific discussion.”

—First Tracks!! Online Skiing Magazine

“When it comes to snow, the details—both small- and large-scale—do matter. If we all observed our
surroundings with as much curiosity and enthusiasm as Steenburgh, the world could be a much better-
tended place.”

—American Scientist

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cover of Secrets of the Snout: The Dog’s Incredible Nose

Secrets of the Snout

The Dog’s Incredible Nose

Frank Rosell

University of Chicago Press, 2018

Dogs and humans have worked side by side for thousands of years, and over the millennia we’ve come to depend upon our pooches as hunters, protectors, and faithful companions. But when it comes to the extraordinary quality of man’s best friend which we rely on most, the winner is clear—by a nose. In Secrets of the Snout, Frank Rosell blends storytelling and science as he sniffs out the myriad ways in which dogs have been trained to employe their incredible olfactory skills, from sussing out cancer and narcotics to locating endangered and invasive species, as well as missing persons (and golf balls).

With 300 million receptors to our mere 5 million, a dog’s nose is estimated to be between 100,000 and 100 million times more sensitive than a human’s. No wonder, then, that our nasally inferior species has sought to unleash the prodigious power of canine shnozzes. Rosell here takes us for a walk with a pack of superhero sniffers including Tutta, a dog with a fine nose for fine wine; the pet-finder pooch AJ; search-and-rescue dog Barry; the hunting dog Balder; the police dogs Rasko and Trixxi; the warfare dog Lisa; the cancer detection dog Jack; Tucker, who scents floating killer whale feces; and even Elvis, who can smell when you’re ovulating. With each dog, Rosell turns his nose to the evolution of the unique olfactory systems involved, which odors dogs detect, and how they do it.

A celebration of how the canine sense for scents works—and works for us—Secrets of the Snout will have dog lovers, trainers, and researchers alike all howling with delight. Exploring this most pointed of canine wonders, Rosell reveals the often surprising ways in which dogs are bettering our world, one nose at a time.
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cover of Secrets of the Sun: A Memoir

Secrets of the Sun

A Memoir

Mako Yoshikawa

The Ohio State University Press, 2024

Mako Yoshikawa’s father, Shoichi, was a man of contradictions. He grew up fabulously wealthy in prewar Japan but spent his final years living in squalor; he was a proper Japanese man who craved society’s approval yet cross-dressed; he was a brilliant Princeton University physicist and renowned nuclear fusion researcher, yet his career withered as his severe bipolar disorder tightened its grip. And despite his generosity and charisma, he was often violent and cruel toward those closest to him. Yoshikawa adored him, feared him, and eventually cut him out of her life, but after he died, she was driven to try to understand this extraordinarily complex man. In Secrets of the Sun, her search takes her through everything from the Asian American experience of racism to her father’s dedication to fusion energy research, from mental illness to the treatment of women in Japan, and more. Yoshikawa gradually discovers a life filled with secrets, searching until someone from her father’s past at last provides the missing piece in her knowledge: the story of his childhood. Secrets of the Sun is about a daughter’s mission to uncover her father’s secrets and to find closure in the shadow of genius, mental illness, and violence.
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cover of Secrets of the Universe: How We Discovered the Cosmos

Secrets of the Universe

How We Discovered the Cosmos

Paul Murdin

University of Chicago Press, 2009

Discoveries in astronomy challenge our fundamental ideas about the universe. Where the astronomers of antiquity once spoke of fixed stars, we now speak of whirling galaxies and giant supernovae. Where we once thought Earth was the center of the universe, we now see it as a small planet among millions of other planetary systems, any number of which could also hold life. These dramatic shifts in our perspective hinge on thousands of individual discoveries: moments when it became clear to someone that some part of the universe—whether a planet or a supermassive black hole—was not as it once seemed.

Secrets of the Universe invites us to participate in these moments of revelation and wonder as scientists first experienced them. Renowned astronomer Paul Murdin here provides an ambitious and exciting overview of astronomy, conveying for newcomers and aficionados alike the most important discoveries of this science and introducing the many people who made them. Lavishly illustrated with more than 400 color images, the book outlines in seventy episodes what humankind has learned about the cosmos—and what scientists around the world are poised to learn in the coming decades. Arranged by types of discovery, it also provides an overarching narrative throughout that explains how the earliest ideas of the cosmos evolved into the cutting-edge astronomy we know today. Along the way, Murdin never forgets that science is a human endeavor, and that every discovery was the result of inspiration, hard work, or luck—usually all three.

The first section of Secrets explores discoveries made before the advent of the telescope, from stars and constellations to the position of our own sun. The second considers discoveries made within our own solar system, from the phases of Venus and the moons of Jupiter to the comets and asteroids at its distant frontier. The next section delves into discoveries of the dynamic universe, like gravitation, relativity, pulsars, and black holes. A fourth examines discoveries made within our own galaxy, from interstellar nebulae and supernovae to Cepheid variable stars and extrasolar planets. Next Murdin turns to discoveries made within the deepest recesses of the universe, like quasars, supermassive black holes, and gamma ray bursters. In the end, Murdin unveils where astronomy still teeters on the edge of discovery, considering dark matter and alien life.

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cover of Secrets to Writing Great Papers

Secrets to Writing Great Papers

Judi Kesselman-Turkel and Franklynn Peterson

University of Wisconsin Press, 2003

Secrets to Writing Great Papers illustrates how to work with ideas—develop them, hone them, and transform them into words. It provides techniques and exercises for brainstorming, choosing the right approach, working with an unknown or boring assigned topic, overcoming writer’s block, and selecting the best point of view.

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cover of Secrets, Sex, and Spectacle: The Rules of Scandal in Japan and the United States

Secrets, Sex, and Spectacle

The Rules of Scandal in Japan and the United States

Mark D. West

University of Chicago Press, 2006

A leader of a global superpower is betrayed by his mistress, who makes public the sordid details of their secret affair. His wife stands by as he denies the charges. Debates over definitions of moral leadership ensue. Sound familiar? If you guessed Clinton and Lewinsky, try again. This incident involved former Japanese prime minister Sosuke Uno and a geisha.

In Secrets, Sex, and Spectacle, Mark D. West organizes the seemingly random worlds of Japanese and American scandal—from corporate fraud to baseball cheaters, political corruption to celebrity sexcapades—to explore well-ingrained similarities and contrasts in law and society. In Japan and the United States, legal and organizational rules tell us what kind of behavior is considered scandalous. When Japanese and American scandal stories differ, those rules—rules that define what’s public and what’s private, rules that protect injuries to dignity and honor, and rules about sex, to name a few—often help explain the differences. In the cases of Clinton and Uno, the rules help explain why the media didn’t cover Uno’s affair, why Uno’s wife apologized on her husband’s behalf, and why Uno—and not Clinton—resigned.

Secrets, Sex, and Spectacle offers a novel approach to viewing the phenomenon of scandal—one that will be applauded by anyone who has obsessed over (or ridiculed) these public episodes.

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cover of Siena: City of Secrets

Siena

City of Secrets

Jane Tylus

University of Chicago Press, 2015

Jane Tylus’s Siena is a compelling and intimate portrait of this most secretive of cities, often overlooked by travelers to Italy. Cultural history, intellectual memoir, travelogue, and guidebook, it takes the reader on a quest of discovery through the well- and not-so-well-traveled roads and alleys of a town both medieval and modern.
           
As Tylus leads us through the city, she shares her passion for Siena in novelistic prose, while never losing sight of the historical complexities that have made Siena one of the most fascinating and beautiful towns in Europe. Today, Siena can appear on the surface standoffish and old-fashioned, especially when compared to its larger, flashier cousins Rome and Florence. But first impressions wear away as we learn from Tylus that Siena was an innovator among the cities of Italy: the first to legislate the building and maintenance of its streets, the first to publicly fund its university, the first to institute a municipal bank, and even the first to ban automobile traffic from its city center.
           
We learn about Siena’s great artistic and architectural past, hidden behind centuries of painting and rebuilding, and about the distinctive characters of its different neighborhoods, exemplified in the Palio, the highly competitive horserace that takes place twice a year in the city’s main piazza and that serves as both a dividing and a uniting force for the Sienese. Throughout we are guided by the assured voice of a seasoned scholar with a gift for spinning a good story and an eye for the telling detail, whether we are traveling Siena’s modern highways, exploring its underground tunnels, tracking the city’s financial history, or celebrating giants of painting like Simone Martini or giants of the arena, Siena’s former Serie A soccer team.
           
A practical and engaging guide for tourists and armchair travelers alike, Siena is a testament to the powers of community and resilience in a place that is not quite as timeless and serene as it may at first appear.
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cover of Telling Narratives: Secrets in African American Literature

Telling Narratives

Secrets in African American Literature

Leslie W. Lewis

University of Illinois Press, 2007

Telling Narratives analyzes key texts from nineteenth- and early twentieth-century African American literature to demonstrate how secrets and their many tellings have become slavery's legacy. By focusing on the ways secrets are told in texts by Jessie Fauset, Charles W. Chesnutt, Pauline Hopkins, Frederick Douglass, and others, Leslie W. Lewis suggests an alternative model to the feminist dichotomy of "breaking silence" in response to sexual violence. This fascinating study also suggests that masculine bias problematically ignores female experience in order to equate slavery with social death. In calling attention to the sexual behavior of slave masters in African American literature, Lewis highlights its importance to slavery’s legacy and offers a new understanding of the origins of self-consciousness within African American experience.

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cover of The KGB and the Vatican: Secrets of the Mitrokhin Files

The KGB and the Vatican

Secrets of the Mitrokhin Files

Sean Brennan

Catholic University of America Press, 2022

One of the greatest ironies of the history of Soviet rule is that, for an officially atheistic state, those in the political police and in the Politburo devoted an enormous amount of time and attention to the question of religion. The Soviet government’s policies toward religious institutions in the USSR, and toward religious institutions in the non-Communist world, reflected this, especially when it came to the Vatican and Catholic Churches, both the Latin and Byzantine Rite, in Soviet territory. The KGB and the Vatican consists of the transcripts of KGB records concerning the policies of the Soviet secret police towards the Vatican and the Catholic Church in the Communist world, transcripts provided by KGB archivist and defector Vasili Mitrokhin, from the Second Vatican Council to the election of John Paul II. Among the topics covered include how the Soviet regime viewed the efforts of John XXIII and Paul VI of reaching out to eastern side of the Iron Curtain, the experience of the Roman Catholic Church in Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic and the underground Greek Catholic Church in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, the religious underground in the key cities of Leningrad and Moscow, and finally the election of John Paul II and its effect on the tumultuous events in Poland in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This valuable primary source collection also contains a historical introduction written by the translator, Sean Brennan, a professor of History at the University of Scranton.
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cover of The Secret of Secrets: The East Slavic Version

The Secret of Secrets

The East Slavic Version

Edited by W.F. Ryan and Moshe Taube

University of London Press, 2019

The original Arabic Secret of Secrets was probably compiled from multiple sources, and dates from about the tenth century. It purports to be the advice of Aristotle to his pupil Alexander the Great on all the knowledge - political, ethical, military, medical, and occult - needed by a great king. It was translated into Latin, Hebrew, and many European languages. It has been described as one of the most popular books of the Middle Ages. The Hebrew version was translated into a variety of East Slavic, probably in Kiev before 1483. This idiosyncratic version contains major interpolations: a physiognomy by Razes and treatises on poison, sex, and asthma by Maimonides. It is known to have been in the libraries of at least two tsars and two patriarchs in the 16th and 17th centuries. This annotated edition contains a historical introduction, the text, manuscript variants, an analytical glossary, and an English translation.
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cover of The Secret of Secrets: The Scholarly Career of a Pseudo-Aristotelian Text in the Latin Middle Ages

The Secret of Secrets

The Scholarly Career of a Pseudo-Aristotelian Text in the Latin Middle Ages

Steven J. Williams

University of Michigan Press, 2003

The Secret of Secrets. The title alone promises the revelation of the most treasured arcana and piques our interest. Add the names of Aristotle and Alexander the Great, and our curiosity is securely engaged. Readers reacted similarly during the Latin Middle Ages. The work alleges to be an extended letter of advice sent by Aristotle to his former pupil Alexander the Great while the latter was on a campaign in Persia. It stood at the top of the "best-seller" list for hundreds of years and was read by two different audiences: scholars and laypersons. Steven J. Williams focuses his study on its reception by European scholars, starting with its translation into Latin during the High Middle Ages and carrying the story through to the time when scholarly attention waned around 1550.
 
An important medieval text that also provides a window onto medieval intellectual life, Secret of Secrets played a modest though significant role in medieval scholarly life: "significant" in that it was used in a variety of scholarly contexts, had some part to play in the scholarly controversies of the day, and was so often read that an impressive number of manuscripts are still extant today; "modest" in that it was cited much less frequently than the major works of its day.
 
Steven J. Williams is Associate Professor in the Department of History, New Mexico Highlands University.
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cover of The Secrets of Alchemy

The Secrets of Alchemy

Lawrence M. Principe

University of Chicago Press, 2012

In The Secrets of Alchemy, Lawrence M. Principe, one of the world’s leading authorities on the subject, brings alchemy out of the shadows and restores it to its important place in human history and culture. By surveying what alchemy was and how it began, developed, and overlapped with a range of ideas and pursuits, Principe illuminates the practice. He vividly depicts the place of alchemy during its heyday in early modern Europe, and then explores how alchemy has fit into wider views of the cosmos and humanity, touching on its enduring place in literature, fine art, theater, and religion as well as its recent acceptance as a serious subject of study for historians of science. In addition, he introduces the reader to some of the most fascinating alchemists, such as Zosimos and Basil Valentine, whose lives dot alchemy’s long reign from the third century and to the present day. Through his exploration of alchemists and their times, Principe pieces together closely guarded clues from obscure and fragmented texts to reveal alchemy’s secrets, and—most exciting for budding alchemists—uses them to recreate many of the most famous recipes in his lab, including those for the “glass of antimony” and “philosophers’ tree.” This unique approach brings the reader closer to the actual work of alchemy than any other book.

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cover of The Secrets of the Hopewell Box: Stolen Elections, Southern Politics, and a City's Coming of Age

The Secrets of the Hopewell Box

Stolen Elections, Southern Politics, and a City's Coming of Age

James D. Squires

Vanderbilt University Press, 1996

"A sometimes eye-goggling history of political corruption in one corner of the postwar South. . . . [Squires'] grandfather was a sheriff's deputy who carried a gun and a clenched fist, a man . . . [who] was also, Squires relates, one of the muscle men behind a vicious cabal of power brokers headed by one Boss Crump. . . . That machine involved, for a time, much of Nashville's leading citizenry. It engineered elections, stole votes, organized lynch mobs, ran an illegal gambling empire, and in the 1950s, when it appeared that the traditional Democratic Party was going soft on civil rights, brokered the advent of Republicanism in one corner of the South."
—Kirkus Reviews

"His richly textured narrative charts the Nashville machine's rupture with the state's top political boss, Edward Crump of Memphis, and traces the sweeping reforms that shattered rural white control of the state legislature. Squires dramatically reenacts the downfall of Nashville lawyer Tommy Osborn, convicted of jury tampering in 1964 after defending Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa. He follows Nashville's transformation into a crucible of the civil rights movement in this stirring chronicle of the South's coming-of-age."
—Publishers Weekly
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cover of The Woman Who Knew Too Much, Revised Ed.: Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation

The Woman Who Knew Too Much, Revised Ed.

Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation

Gayle Greene

University of Michigan Press, 2017

The Woman Who Knew Too Much illuminates the life and achievements of the remarkable woman scientist who revolutionized the concept of radiation risk. For more than 40 years, Alice Stewart (1906–2002) warned that low-dose radiation was more dangerous than anyone acknowledged. In the 1950s she discovered that fetal x-rays double a child’s risk of developing cancer. Two decades later, in her 70s, she again astounded the scientific world by showing that the U.S. nuclear weapons industry was about 20 times more dangerous than safety regulations admitted. This finding put her at the center of an international controversy over radiation risk. In 1990, the New York Times called Stewart “perhaps the Energy Department's most influential and feared scientific critic.”   

Author Gayle Greene traces Stewart's life and career as she came up against ever more powerful authorities, first the British medical profession, then the U.S. nuclear industry, and finally the regulatory agencies that set radiation safety standards throughout the world. Stewart endured the fate of other women scientists in having her findings dismissed and funding cut, but today is recognized as a pioneering figure in epidemiological research on the dangers of nuclear radiation. In her preface to the second edition, Greene looks at new information that’s come out about the forces and individuals responsible for marginalizing her as a scientist and downplaying the disturbing implications of her research.
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cover of The Woman Who Knew Too Much: Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation

The Woman Who Knew Too Much

Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation

Gayle Greene

University of Michigan Press, 2001

This biography illuminates the life and achievements of the remarkable woman scientist who revolutionized the concept of radiation risk.

In the 1950s Alice Stewart began research that led to her discovery that fetal X rays double a child's risk of developing cancer. Two decades later---when she was in her seventies---she again astounded the scientific world with a study showing that the U.S. nuclear weapons industry is about twenty times more dangerous than safety regulations permit. This finding put her at the center of the international controversy over radiation risk. In 1990, the New York Times called Stewart "perhaps the Energy Department's most influential and feared scientific critic."

The Woman Who Knew Too Much traces Stewart's life and career from her early childhood in Sheffield to her medical education at Cambridge to her research positions at Oxford University and the University of Birmingham.

Gayle Greene is Professor of Women's Studies and Literature, Scripps College.

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cover of The World of Lucha Libre: Secrets, Revelations, and Mexican National Identity

The World of Lucha Libre

Secrets, Revelations, and Mexican National Identity

Heather Levi

Duke University Press, 2008

The World of Lucha Libre is an insider’s account of lucha libre, the popular Mexican form of professional wrestling. Heather Levi spent more than a year immersed in the world of wrestling in Mexico City. Not only did she observe live events and interview wrestlers, referees, officials, promoters, and reporters; she also apprenticed with a retired luchador (wrestler). Drawing on her insider’s perspective, she explores lucha libre as a cultural performance, an occupational subculture, and a set of symbols that circulate through Mexican culture and politics. Levi argues that the broad appeal of lucha libre lies in its capacity to stage contradictions at the heart of Mexican national identity: between the rural and the urban, tradition and modernity, ritual and parody, machismo and feminism, politics and spectacle.

Levi considers lucha libre in light of scholarship about sport, modernization, and the formation of the Mexican nation-state, and in connection to professional wrestling in the United States. She examines the role of secrecy in wrestling, the relationship between wrestlers and the characters they embody, and the meanings of the masks worn by luchadors. She discusses male wrestlers who perform masculine roles, those who cross-dress and perform feminine roles, and female wrestlers who wrestle each other. Investigating the relationship between lucha libre and the mass media, she highlights the history of the sport’s engagement with television: it was televised briefly in the early 1950s, but not again until 1991. Finally, Levi traces the circulation of lucha libre symbols in avant-garde artistic movements and its appropriation in left-wing political discourse. The World of Lucha Libre shows how a sport imported from the United States in the 1930s came to be an iconic symbol of Mexican cultural authenticity.

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