New Releases by Petr

“Recalling the diaries of . . . Anne Frank, Ginz’s diaries reveal a budding Czech literary and artistic genius whose life was cut short by the Nazis.” —International Herald Tribune Not since Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl has such an intimately candid, deeply affecting account of a childhood compromised by Nazi tyranny come to light. As a fourteen-year-old Jewish boy living in Prague in the early 1940s, Petr Ginz dutifully kept a diary that captured the increasingly precarious texture of daily life. His stunningly mature paintings, drawings, and writings reflect his insatiable appetite for learning and experience and openly display his growing artistic and literary genius. Petr was killed in a gas chamber at Auschwitz at the age of sixteen. His diaries—recently discovered in a Prague attic under extraordinary circumstances—are an invaluable historical document and a testament to one remarkable child’s insuppressible hunger for life. “Given his unprecedented situation, his words were unprecedented. He was creating new language. He was creating life . . . The diary in your hands did not save Petr. But it did save us.” —Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and Everything Is Illuminated

I started researching the dramatic changes in the automobile industry of Central and East European countries in the late 1990s. My interest grew out of my previous work on the post-socialist transformation, foreign - rect investment and regional economic development. While researching the economic and regional development effects of foreign direct inve- ment, I was increasingly drawn to the automobile industry because of the speed and depth of its transformation through foreign direct investment and its potentially very significant economic and regional development - fects. In addition to working on the Central and East European automobile industry as a whole, I became interested in detailed case studies of ent- prise restructuring as I wanted to understand its complex nature and the role of different actors in the restructuring of the automobile industry. In order to achieve this goal, I visited dozens of automotive enterprises, es- cially in the Czech Republic (Czechia) to conduct in-depths interviews with key informants. I have also interviewed key informants at ministries, automotive associations and academia and collected various secondary data and information. This book is the outcome of this work. In this endeavor I have benefited from various support. The University Committee on Research and Creative Activity at the University of Nebraska at Omaha funded three field work sessions in Czechia to conduct interviews and research for this book.

This exceptional book of selected essays by the leading Czech linguist and member of the Prague Linguistic Circle contains 26 essays in English and 4 in German. It presents the wide scope of Sgall''s interest and in six parts introduces the main spheres of author''s interest - the first part of the book deals with general and theoretical questions, the second contains Sgall''s contribution to syntax, the third covers the functional sentence perspective, the fourth sentences and discourse, the fifth language typology and the last part covers speech and writing

This study of innovation - its intensity, the sources used for knowledge creation, and its impacts - is based on a comprehensive survey of innovation of Canadian manufacturing firms. Attention is paid to the different actors in the system, who both compete with and complement one another. The study investigates how innovation regimes differ across size of firm and across industries. Owing to the high degree of foreign investment in Canada, special attention is paid to the performance of foreign-owned firms. The innovation regime of Canadian innovators is compared with results of studies of other industrialized countries. The picture of a typical innovator is a firm that combines internal resources and external contacts to develop a set of complementary strategies. The study finds that innovating firms depend not only on R&D, but also on ideas and technology from various other sources, both internal and external to the firm.

One night on the farm everything is topsy-turvy and the moon will only smile when things are put right. It''s time for him to light the stars, one by one. This interactive counting story combines graphic pictures with simple novelty devices.

Shows how different forms of skepticism can lead to remarkably different moral and political implications.

A reference to more than six hundred minerals, with color photographs of each type and an explanation of their forms and properties.

Surviving pieces of armor are among the greatest treasures preserved from the past. Protective armor of various types was worn by warriors of many centuries. Soldiers of the ancient city-states wore simple helmets and breastplates and carried shields. By the end of the Middle Ages, mounted warriors had come to be entirely encased in armor of very sophisticated construction. The armor that has survived to the present is not only interesting for the skill and artistry with which it was made, but reveals a great deal about the methods of warfare and even the social structure of past eras.

People have always been interested in numbers, in particular the natural numbers. Of course, we all have an intuitive notion of what these numbers are. In the late 19th century mathematicians, such as Grassmann, Frege and Dedekind, gave definitions for these familiar objects. Since then the development of axiomatic schemes for arithmetic have played a fundamental role in a logical understanding of mathematics. There has been a need for some time for a monograph on the metamathematics of first-order arithmetic. The aim of the book by Hajek and Pudlak is to cover some of the most important results in the study of a first order theory of the natural numbers, called Peano arithmetic and its fragments (subtheories). The field is quite active, but only a small part of the results has been covered in monographs. This book is divided into three parts. In Part A, the authors develop parts of mathematics and logic in various fragments. Part B is devoted to incompleteness. Part C studies systems that have the induction schema restricted to bounded formulas (Bounded Arithmetic). One highlight of this section is the relation of provability to computational complexity. The study of formal systems for arithmetic is a prerequisite for understanding results such as Gödel''s theorems. This book is intended for those who want to learn more about such systems and who want to follow current research in the field. The book contains a bibliography of approximately 1000 items.

Czech, a clear case of a language having a Standard and a strong central vernacular with intensive shifting between them, offers many points of general interest to sociolinguists. This volume is divided in 5 chapters and opens with a general discussion of language varieties. ''The Two Central Language Formations in Czech'' gives a summary description of the Czech central vernacular. This is followed by a chapter on ''The Origin and Opposition of Standard and Common Czech'' and in the next chapter code switching between Standard and Common Czech is discussed. The concluding chapter presents starting points for a theoretical description of a national language with intralingual variation and a preliminary formulation of perspectives on the stratification of Czech.

A story of three brothers and their adventures with a humpbacked horse.

It was in prison in 1911 that Peter Arshinov established a close personal and political friendship with Makhno, which continued after their release following the February Revolution in 1917. In 1919 Arshinov became Makhno’s secretary, and remained with the Makhnovists until 1921. In 1922 he settled in Berlin and published the Russian edition of his story. Arshinov’s history of the Makhnovists is undoubtedly the most important source work available. Includes an introduction by Voline, and excellent prefaces by Fredy Perlman (the original translator, and publisher, of the work in English), and Nicolas Walter (to the original Freedom Press edition). It’s about time this was available again!

History of pi, says the author, though a small part of the history of mathematics, is nevertheless a mirror of the history of man. Petr Beckmann holds up this mirror, giving the background of the times when pi made progress and also when it did not, because science was being stifled by militarism or religious fanaticism. The mathematical level of this book is flexble, and there is plenty for readers of all ages and interests.