The Empire of Chance

The Empire of Chance PDF

Author: Gerd Gigerenzer

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 9780521398381

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Connects the earliest applications of probability and statistics in gambling and insurance to the most recent applications in law, medicine, polling, and baseball as well as their impact on biology, physics and psychology.

Empire of Chance

Empire of Chance PDF

Author: Anders Engberg-Pedersen

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2015-03-10

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 067442543X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Napoleon’s campaigns were the most complex military undertakings in history before the nineteenth century. But the defining battles of Austerlitz, Borodino, and Waterloo changed more than the nature of warfare. Concepts of chance, contingency, and probability became permanent fixtures in the West’s understanding of how the world works. Empire of Chance examines anew the place of war in the history of Western thought, showing how the Napoleonic Wars inspired a new discourse on knowledge. Soldiers returning from the battlefields were forced to reconsider basic questions about what it is possible to know and how decisions are made in a fog of imperfect knowledge. Artists and intellectuals came to see war as embodying modernity itself. The theory of war espoused in Carl von Clausewitz’s classic treatise responded to contemporary developments in mathematics and philosophy, and the tools for solving military problems—maps, games, and simulations—became models for how to manage chance. On the other hand, the realist novels of Balzac, Stendhal, and Tolstoy questioned whether chance and contingency could ever be described or controlled. As Anders Engberg-Pedersen makes clear, after Napoleon the state of war no longer appeared exceptional but normative. It became a prism that revealed the underlying operative logic determining the way society is ordered and unfolds.

Praetorian (Eagles of the Empire 11)

Praetorian (Eagles of the Empire 11) PDF

Author: Simon Scarrow

Publisher: Headline

Published: 2011-11-10

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 0755357213

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

IF YOU DON'T KNOW SIMON SCARROW, YOU DON'T KNOW ROME! PRAETORIAN is the gripping eleventh novel in Simon Scarrow's bestselling Eagles of the Empire series. Essential reading for fans of Bernard Cornwell and Conn Iggulden. 'A new book in Simon Scarrow's series about the Roman army is always a joy' The Times AD 51. Legionaries Cato and Macro have forged a bond that has survived war, rebellion and torture. Yet nothing has prepared them for a daunting mission on the deadliest battlefield of all: the bloody streets of Rome. Traitors are threatening to plunge the Empire into bloody chaos and no one can be trusted. The Emperor has ordered Cato and Macro to go on a deadly mission, working undercover to root out the traitors before Rome tears itself apart. As the true scale of the corruption dawns, they realise they are facing terrifying odds. Two men against many, in a desperate race to save not only the Empire, but each other...

Britannia (Eagles of the Empire 14)

Britannia (Eagles of the Empire 14) PDF

Author: Simon Scarrow

Publisher: Headline

Published: 2015-11-19

Total Pages: 433

ISBN-13: 1472213297

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

IF YOU DON'T KNOW SIMON SCARROW, YOU DON'T KNOW ROME! A Sunday Times bestseller. Shortlisted for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize. Simon Scarrow's veteran Roman soldier heroes face a cunning and relentless enemy in BRITANNIA, the unforgettable fourteenth novel in the bestselling Eagles of the Empire series. Roman Britain, AD 52. The western tribes prepare to make a stand. But can they match the discipline and courage of the legionaries? Wounded Centurion Macro remains behind in charge of the fort as Prefect Cato leads an invasion deep into the hills. Cato's mission: to cement Rome's triumph over the natives by crushing the Druid stronghold. But with winter drawing in, the terrain is barely passable through icy rain and snowstorms. When Macro's patrols report that the natives in the vicinity of the garrison are thinning out, a terrible suspicion takes shape in the battle-scarred soldier's mind. Has the acting Governor, Legate Quintatus, underestimated the enemy? If there is a sophisticated and deadly plan afoot, it's Cato and his men who will pay the price... Includes maps, chart and author Q&A.

Hostages of Empire

Hostages of Empire PDF

Author: Sarah Ann Frank

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2021-07-08

Total Pages: 464

ISBN-13: 1496227026

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

2022 Heggoy Prize from the French Colonial Historical Society Royal Historical Society's 2022 Gladstone Book Prize Shortlist Hostages of Empire combines a social history of colonial prisoner-of-war experiences with a broader analysis of their role in Vichy's political tensions with the country's German occupiers. The colonial prisoners of war came from across the French Empire, they fought in the Battle for France in 1940, and they were captured by the German Army. Unlike their French counterparts, who were taken to Germany, the colonial POWs were interned in camps called Frontstalags throughout occupied France. This decision to keep colonial POWs in France defined not only their experience of captivity but also how the French and German authorities reacted to them. Hostages of Empire examines how the entanglement of French national pride after the 1940 defeat and the need for increased imperial control shaped the experiences of 85,000 soldiers in German captivity. Sarah Ann Frank analyzes the nature of Vichy's imperial commitments and collaboration with its German occupiers and argues that the Vichy regime actively improved conditions of captivity for colonial prisoners in an attempt to secure their present and future loyalty. This French "magnanimity" toward the colonial prisoners was part of a broader framework of racial difference and hierarchy. As such, the relatively dignified treatment of colonial prisoners must be viewed as a paradox in light of Vichy and Free French racism in the colonies and the Vichy regime's complicity in the Holocaust. Hostages of Empire seeks to reconcile two previously rather distinct histories: that of metropolitan France and that of the French colonies during World War II.

The Empire of the Self

The Empire of the Self PDF

Author: Christopher Star

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2012-12-01

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 1421407264

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Christopher Star uncovers significant points of contact between Seneca and Petronius, two important Roman writers long thought to be antagonists. In The Empire of the Self, Christopher Star studies the question of how political reality affects the concepts of body, soul, and self. Star argues that during the early Roman Empire the establishment of autocracy and the development of a universal ideal of individual autonomy were mutually enhancing phenomena. The Stoic ideal of individual empire or complete self-command is a major theme of Seneca’s philosophical works. The problematic consequences of this ideal are explored in Seneca’s dramatic and satirical works, as well as in the novel of his contemporary Petronius. Star examines the rhetorical links between these diverse texts. He also demonstrates a significant point of contact between two writers generally thought to be antagonists—the idea that imperial speech structures reveal the self.