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 His diaries—recently discovered in a Prague attic under extraordinary circumstances—are an invaluable historical document and a testament to one remarkable child’s insuppressible hunger for life.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

This is a brilliant examination of the complex processes of the post-1990 transformation in the Czech automotive industry and its selective integration into the West European system. The post-1990 restructuring of the industry is analyzed in the context of its pre-1990 development and in the context of the East European automobile industry as a whole. Specifically, the book examines the development and post-1990 restructuring of the Czech car, components, and truck industries.

The history, origins and development of the government and state as an institution is an essential question concerning not only the history of Mesopotamia but the development of the human community and society in general. Petr Charvát''s work concentrates on the period 3500-2500 B. C. in Susa (southwestern Iran) and south Mesopotamia and is based on the interpretation of symbols on painted pottery and seal impressions. The publication is accompanied by a catalogue of 134 documentary black and white drawings and a list of locations of the findings.

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.

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!

La collection «des villes» est le lieu de rencontre privilégié entre des écrivains de notre temps et les villes qui les fascinèrent. Villes de France ou villes du monde, grandes ou petites, illustres ou secrètes, elles sont la rêverie d''un peintre devant son modèle, l''empreinte laissée par telle ville dans telle âme. Car on peut se pencher sur une ville comme on se penche sur un être aimé.

The 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.