European-terms Books

Explains in lay terms the processes used in illuminated medieval manuscripts. Still a bit complicated, but a good resource.

This publication using a lexiconary form lavishly displays an art form too long ignored. Extraordinary effort and expense has created a book that shows and explains the accomplishments of a lost art. Any bibliophile, any artist will devour this book.

This slim volume by Michelle Brown is an excellent resource for anyone who is interested in the study of books and manuscripts (codicology). In a succinct dictionary format, Brown gives definitions of all of the major terms that may give trouble to someone visiting a museum or reading a work by such major writers in the field as Chris DeHamel. Suitable as both a textbook and a companion to books on manuscripts, this book is nearly indispensible to the beginner and the intermediate in allowing some understanding into the complex technical and art-historical vocabulary used in the field.

I used this book and the Christopher De Hamel book while I was taking a graduate course on Illuminated Manuscripts. The information was indispensable for the entirety of the course, but it also helped me in future courses I took. It is wonderful to find an academic book that is fun to read! I would heartily recommend it to anyone, and especially to students who are studying manuscripts or merely the art history of the period! It is a most worthwhile investment!

This little volume provides brief definitions of all the important phrases and terms used in the study of illuminated manuscripts including forms, techniques, themes, and periods.

Great for understanding the differences between an historiated initial and an inhabited initial - or between an antiphonal and a gradual.

Most of the representative images are in color and are well chosen to illustrate the definitions. Perhaps their only drawback is their small size due to the size limitations of the book itself.

A great companion while reading to "Medieval Illuminators & their Methods of Work" by Jonathan J.G. ALexander or "A History of Illuminated Manuscripts" by Christopher De Hamel.

The book begins with a quick general overview on Greek ceramics - its history, techniques, trajectory in themes, artists, mythological characters, Greek culture/society that finds itself within the art, etc - that provides the reader with a pretty good base for the number of pages it takes up. There is then a short section on the 'conservation and care of ancient Greek ceramic objects' that explains some more technical things.

After that comes the large section on Greek potters and vase painters, listed in alphabetical order and accompanied by colorful and informative images of the relevant vases. The artist's period, name, style and whatnot are explained in detail. Definitions for unfamiliar terms used in this section can be found in the next part of the book, which explains vase shapes and technical terms in normal English (also with nice images). Thus through the cross-referencing, most of the book's content can be understood without much trouble. At the end is a chart of vase shapes, which is useful because you can compare them without having to flip a single page.

This book is excellent for purposes of quick reference. I would say that most people would not read it like they would a novel, but if you have any interest in Greek vase paintings, this is an excellent book to have.

Understanding Greek Vases, published by the Getty Museum, is a compact reference guide that provides the essential background (painters, styles, terminology) needed to study and appreciate ancient Greek vases.

The major part of the book consists of short (half-page), encyclopedia-style, entries for Athenian potters, vase-painters, ceramic styles, and other essential terminology. Coverage, although limited to Athenian pottery, is broad and expert, ranging from "bilingual vases" to "Six's technique." Entries are generously illustrated, mostly in color, by important examples (including many "name vases") from museum collections in the U.S. and abroad.

What really sets this book apart is that the individual entries are so extensively cross-referenced, that they look and feel more like a hypertext-linked web site than a conventional book. For example, if you look up the entry for the "Brygos Painter," you'll get cross-references in the text to three other Cup-painters, to Cup-painting itself, to the Pioneers, to Workshops, to Attribution, to Kylix, and to seven illustrations.

This is an amazingly effective reference, one that I will use often at home, and take with me whenever I go to look at Greek vases in a museum. Tip: don't plan to read it cover-to-cover like an ordinary book. Begin with some topic that interests you, and follow the cross-references as you would with a Web page.

Quite extensive. If you're a Vinaya enthusiat, you'll find this book very useful and delightful.

As a librarian, I have always found the online dictionaries for various languages unsatisfactory. The key words a cataloguer is searching for are either not covered at all or else have a different meaning in another context. And how many libraries have a run of foreign language dictionaries to cover everything from Hungarian to Welsh.
Faced with a large multi-lingual project, we were happy to discover this volume. Bibliographic terms are covered neatly under each language; words for volume, edition and so on are all there. There is also a glossary of common terms and sections on ordinal and cardinal numbers for each language. There is abit of grammatical information, which was perhaps not so relevant to our purposes. The only problem I would mention is that the languages are arranged linguistically not alphabetically. We overcame this by bookmarking the sections we found we were using most.
Heartily recommended.

Sue E, Meiner is a nurse practitioner in private practice and has taught nursing. Annette G. Lueckenotte is a gerontologic clinical nurse specialist. There are 22 contributing authors. Only one was apparently a contributing author to the last edition. The contributing authors for the previous two editions are listed.
There are 31 chapters in 6 parts. The book has extensive coverage of gerontologic nursing, theories of aging, legal and ethical issues, and gerontologic assessment in part 1. Part 2 influences on health and illness covers cultural, family, socioeconomic and environmental influences plus health promotion and illness/disability prevention and health care delivery settings for older adults. Part 3 covers the wellness issues of nutrition, sleep and activity, safety, intimacy and sexuality, and mental health. Part 4, common psychophysiologic stressors, includes pain, infection, chronic illness and rehabilitation, substance abuse, cancer, and loss and end-of-life issues. Part 5, diagnostic studies and pharmacologic management, includes laboratory and diagnostic tests and pharmacologic management. Part 6 is nursing care of physiologic and psychologic disorders regarding cardiovasculsr, respiratory, endocrine, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal, urinary, cognitiave and neurologic, integumentary, and sensory function. Care of both well and sick older adults and their families and caregivers is included. Content that is traditionally covered in fundamental and medical-surgical courses is not included.
Each chapter begins with learning objectives. There are client/family teaching, health promotion, nutrition, research, cultural awareness, and home care boxes throughout the book. Chapters end with a brief summary, key points, critical thinking exercises, and references. Current standards and guidelines are incorporated throughout the book.
This book is excellent for teaching undergraduate nursing students gerontologic nursing, medical-surgical nursing or for integrating the content. It is also a good review and reference for practicing nurses.

I found this book to be very useful in the sense that it covers alot of things one would not really think of when caring for the elderly. I think this book would be VERY helpful for the home health care person that cares for the elderly, or a family member of an elder.

This is a collection of Middleton's "city comedies" that take as their subject matter life in Renaissance London. They were written in the early 17th century. Middleton wrote some great tragedies, and he deserves his reputation as a major playwright of the time, perhaps unjustly overshadowed by Shakespeare's looming presence. The comparison, however, is unavoidable. The plays in this collection are not among Middleton's best works, which are undoubtedly the tragedies. The "city comedies" here are the Renaissance equivalent of a modern soap opera or situation comedy, and just as ephemeral. They are, however, of substantial interest to social and cultural historians, as well as scholars of Renaissance drama. They are all about cuckold husbands, greedy tradesmen, adulterous wives, foolish aristocrats, and grasping prostitutes. The character names say it all: Follywit, Harebrain, Brothel, Dustbox, Falselight, Pecunious Lucre, Moneylove, and Goldenfleece, to give just a sampling. The plots are generally convoluted and contrived. The language is often hard to decipher, not because of its rich complexity, as with Shakespeare, but because of the obscure vocabulary, syntax, and sloppy 17th century editing. Compounding the difficulty of the text is that the explanatory notes are all in the back of the book. Now, modern Shakespeare editions always use footnotes, not endnotes, for obvious reasons, so what makes the Oxford editors think they can use endnotes? It's very distracting and awkward to have to turn to the back of the book 5 or 10 times for each page of reading. Yes, every page has 5 to 10 endnotes! There is also a glossary in back, so if you have a question, and there is no endnote, you have to look up the word in the glossary. All this explanatory material should be put on the same page as the playtext. This is a major editing blunder, and there is no excuse for it. Compare the Norton edition of RENAISSANCE DRAMA, where they use footnotes. On the positive side, the Oxford English Drama series does make these plays more widely available. Although I can't imagine that anyone will read them apart from historians, literary scholars, and their students.

While I agree that this is not a text that delves deep into the theories of Lacan or Derrida or Fish or any of the others, it is not intended to do so. I have found it to be an excellent tool for introducing my high school Advanced Placement students to the world of literary criticism. Certainly some of the articles can get wordy or bogged down in "technical" detail, but literary criticism has never been for the reader who wants to skim and get the assignment "over with." Any critical theory takes time and patience to work through; critical theory questions ideas and requires a commitment on the part of the reader to think, question, and engage with the text. There are some essays that younger students simply do not have the skills for yet but there are others that are quite accessible to them. In particular, my students found the essays on Representation, Structure, Race, and Canon very interesting.

This source has one significant advantage over many other texts. For each article, there is an immediate application of the technique to a well-known piece of literature. I know that my students reading of Appiah's essay on race dramatically impacted how they interpreted Shakespeare's play Othello and then later Schuyler's novel Black No More. While neither my students nor I always agree with what the critics are saying, I have found the book a great starting point for discussion.

If you are looking for an easy introduction to literary criticism, than look no further!!.... for a different book. This book is a collection of essays that are poorly written and constructed, have almost no point or conclusion and for the most part leave the reader thinking, "whaaa?".In almost ever essay they use very large ambiguous words and quote many authors but actually don't define the term they're given. They end up using poor examples to express a word they forgot to define in the trample of nonsense. All in all the title of the book should be Irony because it's written by english professors.

I am impressed by this text, with one caveat. At my school it is used as a graduate level textbook and that is probably the appropriate level.

I am an undergrad and I enjoy this book immensely. I'm constantly finding explanations (finally!) for most of the indecipherable ideas embedded in the critical articles I have to use for literature papers. It's giving me the language to interrogate texts and making my reading experiences much more meaningful. This book gives me food for thought for days.

But if it's brain food, it's definitely health food, maybe even crunchy and vegan. There is some truth in the other reviewers' impression that the essays can come out on the pretentious side. This stuff is hard on the modern entertainment-loving brain, unless your brain is entertained by a challenge. I love this book, but I pace myself to about a chapter a month. Since there are 28 chapters, it's going to take me about 2 years to get through it!

The book it is an excellent compendium of complex ideas. The ideas are never cheated of their complexity and their originators are never given short shrift. It can be gotten through in a semester, but only by using selections. Don't be afraid of this book. It's even reasonably priced. But if you try to foist it on undergrads, you might be buying a rebellion.

A better text for a fast and dirty overview could be Peter Barry's "Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory." ISBN: 0719062683. I was taught this book at another school and it's great if you're looking for conversational, succinct, 12-page chapters on all the major schools, in chronological order. But you won't get a deep understanding from Barry's book, and it will only frustrate those who actually want an understanding they can take away long after they put the book down.

this book is the devil! i am using it in a lit studies course and loathe every second i waste reading these essays. they seem to be written mostly by stuffy university professors who are attempting to sound like they know what they are talking about. It is not a dictionary, nor does it help the reader properly understand a term. If you are curious about a word that is discussed in the book, i suggest looking it up in the dictionary. it's easier. and you'll actually learn what the word means without having to search through thick sentences that really make no sense and large words that you know the author just pulled out of a thesauraus.

This book is an anthology of essays describing some important aspects of literature and criticism. It's a really good idea, but badly done here. The book identifies itself as 'a landmark introduction to the work of literary theory' and claims to be suitable for 'the reader beginning to learn about critical theory.' A more accurate description might be, 'written by stuffy, self-important old people for same to enjoy.'

The editors seem to have taken great pains to select works written by people who feel a need to choose the longest word they can find to represent an idea; if a suitably long word does not exist, they combine a word with prefixes and suffixes until they are satisfied. There is no reason to write like this, especially if you're trying to teach someone something. The chapters of the book can be translated into speaking man's English to good effect, and every one of the 28 critical terms really is simple enough to explain without the comically frequent fallback on Latin phrases and words.

I don't know why so many people think this is a great book. Maybe because it's filled with words like 'prosopopoeia,' which is, I'll admit, a valid English word, but a little bit limited in its general use among readers beginning to learn about critical theory. The flow of the essays becomes stinted by the necessity of referring to a dictionary at every fourth word and then translating the resulting mess into a sentence that normal people understand.

In short, this is a bad textbook. The authors have hidden very simple concepts behind such a thick wall of confusing use of language and terminology that the reader becomes a gold miner, chipping away at the useless mountain of words before him to extract what little vein of content he can find.

I am a lawyer, and while a lot may have happened in the law in the past 50 years, as the previous reviewer states, legal terms haven't changed much. I'm still using the 1972 edition of this dictionary to translate legal documents and I haven't had any problems with it. Don't forget that the law has been around for hundreds of years and we're still using terms that are well over 200 years old. I find the book useful.

I bought this dictionary after seeing a glowing review, and once I received it I saw its original publication date was 1955! It has been reprinted a million times, but the content has not been updated in 50 years. Needless to say, the dictionary is completely useless, so I returned it. I am writing this to alert others who might be fooled by what seems to be a current publication date. The key thing to remember is that this dictionary is 50 years old and counting. A lot has happned in law and other areas since 1955! A whole lot!

At a hefty $95 price, I was expecting an expansive and complete tool to help me in my legal translations. Possibly because it is is a very small paperback volume, this dictionary's content is limited and very uneven, sometimes skipping key legal words but including terms from other areas of specialization (e.g. business) and not clearly pointing difference between British and American terms. I often find better legal translations in my trusty general dictionary! As a result, I am on the market for a better legal dictionary.