Louis XIII, the Just

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Barry Miles

"The Beat Hotel has been closed for nearly forty years. But for a brief period - from just after the publication of Howl in 1957 until the building was sold in 1963 - it was home to Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Brion Gysin, Peter Orlovsky, Harold Norse, and a host of other luminaries of the Beat Generation. Now, Barry Miles - acclaimed author of many books on the Beats and a personal acquaintance of many of them - vividly excavates this remarkable period and restores it to a historical picture that has, until now, been skewed in favor of the two coasts of America." "A cheap rooming house on the bohemian Left Bank, the hotel was inhabited mostly by writers and artists, and its communal atmosphere spurred the Beats to incredible heights of creativity."--BOOK JACKET.

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Christina Vella

Born into wealth in New Orleans in 1795 and married into misery fifteen years later, the Baroness Micaela Almonester de Pontalba led a life ripe for novelization. Intimate Enemies, however, is the spellbinding true account of this resilient woman's life - and the three men who most affected its course. Immediately upon marrying Celestin de Pontalba, Micaela was removed to his family's estate in France. For twenty years her father-in-law attempted to drive her to abandon Celestin; by law he could then seize control of her fortune. He tried dozens of strategies, including at one point instructing the entire Pontalba household to pretend she was invisible. Finally, in 1834, the despairing elder Pontalba trapped Micaela in a bedroom and shot her four times before turning his gun on himself. Miraculously, she survived. Five years later, after securing both a separation from Celestin and legal power over her wealth, Micaela focused her attention on building, following in the footsteps of her late, illustrious father, Andres Almonester. Her Parisian mansion, the Hotel Pontalba, is today the official residence of the American embassy in France, and her Pontalba Buildings, which flank Jackson Square in New Orleans, form together with her father's St. Louis Cathedral, Presbytere, and Cabildo one of the loveliest architectural complexes in America. As for Celestin, he eventually suffered a total physical and mental breakdown and begged Micaela to return. She did so, caring for him for twenty-three years until her death in 1874. In Intimate Enemies, Christina Vella embroiders the compelling story of the Almonester-Pontalba alliance against a richly woven background of the events and cultures of two centuries and two vivid societies. She provides a window into the yellow fever epidemics that raged in New Orleans; the rebuilding of Paris, the Paris Commune uprising, and the Second Empire of Napoleon III, European ideas of power, class, money, marriage, and love during the baroness' lifetime and their inflection in the New World setting of New Orleans; medical treatments, legal procedures, imperial court life, banking practices, and much more.

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James T. Kinard, Sr., Alex Kozulin

This book demonstrates how rigorous mathematical thinking can be fostered through the development of students’ cognitive tools and operations. Though this approach can be applied in any classroom, it seems to be particularly effective with socially disadvantaged and culturally different students. The authors argue that children’s cognitive functions cannot be viewed as following a natural maturational path: They should be actively constructed during the educational process. The Rigorous Mathematical Thinking (RMT) model is based on two major theoretical approaches that allow such an active construction of cognitive functions: Vygotsky’s theory of psychological tools and Feuerstein’s concept of mediated learning experience. The book starts with general cognitive tools that are essential for all types of problem solving and then moves to mathematically specific cognitive tools and methods for utilizing these tools for mathematical conceptual formation. The application of the RMT model in various urban classrooms demonstrates how mathematics education standards can be reached even by students with a history of educational failure who were considered hopeless underachievers. James T. Kinard, Sr., earned his Ph.D. in electroanalytical chemistry from Howard University and is president of Innovations for the Development of Cognitive Literacy, Inc., Chicago, Illinois. He developed and implemented the Rigorous Mathematical Thinking program and is a certified trainer of the Feuerstein cognitive development program, Instrumental Enrichment. He lectures at international cognitive enrichment workshops in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, The Netherlands, and India. Alex Kozulin is research director of the International Center for the Enhancement of Learning Potential in Jerusalem, Israel, and teaches at Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University. He held an academic appointment at Boston University, was a visiting professor at the University of Exeter and at the University of Witwatersrand, and was a visiting scholar at Harvard University. Dr.Kozulin is author of Vygotsky’s Psychology: A Biography of Ideas (1990) and Psychological Tools: A Sociocultural Approach to Education (1998).

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Michael Kurtz

Karlheinz Stockhausen is a unique figure in the history of twentieth-century music. A tireless innovator, his work has always aroused great controversy, as well as attracting a fanatical discipleship. Stockhausen is renowned for his role in establishing European serialism, for his pioneering work in every form of electro-acoustic music - from early musique concrete to computer music - for his exploitation of physical performance space, and in the seven-opera cycle Licht for the integration of sound and movement. Stockhausen the man, however, has largely escaped analysis. . Now Stockhausen: A Biography reveals the personal history of this extraordinary figure. We learn of his boyhood in Cologne, his struggles as a student, his studies with Messiaen in Paris, his exacting and highly individual teaching methods at Darmstadt and Cologne, and the circumstances in which many of his greatest works were composed.