Is human vision universal and largely unchanging, or historically conditioned? What happened to the Western understanding of vision when the camera obscuraAa simple pinhole camera popular in the 17th and 18th centuriesAgave way to the Kodak? Columbia University art historian Crary brings a multidisciplinary approach to such questions, and though his work is densely written for an academic audience, it can be fun to read if only for the illustrations of such wacky 19th-century optical toys and devices as the phenakistiscope and the Kaiserpanorama. The book's focus is the cultural function and meaning of an ideal of "attentiveness," which reveals that the contemporary prognosis of "attention deficit disorder" has roots in much earlier anxieties about the failure of concentrated perception. Examining a vast range of scientific writings, works of art and objects from the world of early mass entertainment, Crary argues that 19th-century European culture became obsessed with a perceived breakdown in attentionAas focus and concentration seemed to give way to trance, reverie, monomania and hypnosis. At well over twice the length of Crary's earlier book (1990's elegant Techniques of the Observer), this volume is comparatively unfocused and loosely organized. Extended analysis of three central oil paintings by Manet, Seurat and C?zanne promisesAbut never quite managesAto unify all the heterogeneous material into a coherent whole.

In this Second Edition of his widely acclaimed history of modern China, Jonathan Spence achieves a fine blend of narrative richness and efficiency. The text is tighter throughout and up-to-date on the most important scholarship in the field. The new discussions in this thorough revision include the extension of imperial power into central Asia by the eighteenth-century emperors, women's literacy and education in the Qing, the early development of Chinese nationalism, the roots of Chinese communism and alternatives to Mao, the early stages of the Great Leap Forward and of the Cultural Revolution. There is a new chapter at the end of the book on economic, cultural, and political developments since 1989. Praised as "a miracle of readability and scholarly authority," (Jonathan Mirsky) The Search for Modern China offers students a matchless introduction to China's history. 点击链接进入中文版： 追寻现代中国:1600-1912年的中国历史

在线阅读本书 This is a story for people who follow their hearts and make their own rules...people who get special pleasure out of doing something well, even if only for themselves...people who know there's more to this living than meets the eye: they'll be right there with Jonathan, flying higher and faster than ever they dreamed.