How to create exotic, unforgettable pizzazz in your landscape

Create a foliage-driven garden that dazzles! Although seductive, flowers, by their fleeting nature, are a fickle base to provide long-lasting gardens with year-round interest. Tackle this problem with the advice in Gardening with Foliage First. Learn how to first build a framework of foliage and then layer in flowers and other artistic elements as the finishing touches. This simple, recipe-style approach to garden design features 127 combinations for both sunny and shady gardens that work for a variety of climates and garden challenges.

William James’s Pluralism: An Antidote for Contemporary Extremism and Absolutism explores extremism and the related problem of absolutism in the context of the psychology and philosophy of William James. Extremist and absolutist views were topical in James’s day, especially around the time of the Civil War, but they are no less common in these early years of the 21st century. James argued that the love of singularities such as belief in one God, one method, one political system, or one value system contributes to extremist, even violent mentalities. In this book, James’s views on singular versus pluralistic perspectives are explored and then applied to contemporary practical issues such as abortion, birth control, and death with dignity legislation. These perspectives are furthermore applied to more theoretical issues, such as causality, values, and methods or ways of investigating the world. Within William James’s Pluralism, these theories are investigated in a comprehensive philosophical and psychological examination of the human experience. Written in a nontechnical manner to appeal to the general public—just as William James hoped for his pluralistic philosophy—this book is additionally of considerable interest to academics and students across many fields such as psychology, philosophy, history, and sociology.

You'll find information on the latest and greatest plants that can elevate your garden from humdrum to exceptional.

“An astute account of [Tokyo’s] commuter train network . . . and an intellectually stimulating invitation to rethink the interaction between humans and machines.” —Japan Forum With its infamously packed cars and disciplined commuters, Tokyo’s commuter train network is one of the most complex technical infrastructures on Earth. In An Anthropology of the Machine, Michael Fisch provides a nuanced perspective on how Tokyo’s commuter train network embodies the lived realities of technology in our modern world. Drawing on his fine-grained knowledge of transportation, work, and everyday life in Tokyo, Fisch shows how fitting into a system that operates on the extreme edge of sustainability can take a physical and emotional toll on a community while also creating a collective way of life—one with unique limitations and possibilities. An Anthropology of the Machine is a creative ethnographic study of the culture, history, and experience of commuting in Tokyo. At the same time, it is a theoretically ambitious attempt to think through our very relationship with technology and our possible ecological futures. Fisch provides an unblinking glimpse into what it might be like to inhabit a future in which more and more of our infrastructure—and the planet itself—will have to operate beyond capacity to accommodate our ever-growing population. “Not a ‘rage against the machine’ but an urge to find new ways of coexisting with technology.” —Contemporary Japan “An extraordinary study.” —Ethnos “A fascinating in-depth account of the innovations, inventions, sacrifices, and creativity required to ensure Tokyo’s millions of commuters keep rolling. It also provides much food for thought as our transportation systems become increasingly reliant on automated technology.” —Pacific Affairs

The classic first-contact science fiction novel that launched the career of Jack McDevitt, the national bestselling author of Coming Home—now revised from the original edition, and featuring a new foreword. From a remote corner of the galaxy a message is being sent. The continuous beats of a pulsar have become odd, irregular…artificial. It can only be a code. Frantically, a research team struggles to decipher the alien communication. And what the scientists discover is destined to shake the foundations of empires around this world—from Wall Street to the Vatican…

This second anthology of Russian writing on Russian music begins in 1880 (where the first volume concluded) and ends in 1917. It brings the thoughts of leading Russian music critics to an English-speaking readership as they react to the Russian music that is new to them, during a period when all aspects of musical life were developing rapidly. Music criticism had become more sure-footed, if no less opinionated. These reviews demonstrate greater awareness both of music history and of contemporary music abroad. The period covers the late careers of Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov as well as late works by Borodin and Balakirev, and the emergence of Mussorgsky's compositions. Works by the intervening generation, including Arensky, Glazunov and Lyadov, are also reviewed and the book concludes with coverage of works by the Moscow School, including Medtner, Rachmaninoff and Skryabin and the early compositions of Stravinsky and Prokoviev.