Creating Modernity through the Past

――｜張大千的藝術之旅｜―― 他慧心獨具，以巨匠之手，鎔鑄古今 以明清為師，上追宋元，直至唐與六朝 入古既深，復能超脫而出，開一代風氣之先 將中國古典繪畫推向現代作者是海內外研究張大千藝術的權威學者，本書將張大千置於中國繪畫史的脈絡中，從時代背景、山水畫、人物畫，勾勒出張氏繪畫與中國藝術史千絲萬縷的關係，以及他的復古與創新，剖析一代大師進行創造性「仿古」與「集大成」的藝術之旅。▎〈卷一〉張大千的崛起與時代 審視張大千崛起的歷程與藝術道路張大千是中國繪畫的集大成者，也是傳統的突破者。自上海藝壇出道時，適逢中國美術界傳統派與革新派之爭，張氏雖捨革新而就傳統，卻在其後追本溯源的藝術道路上屢屢創新，晚年開創極具現代感的潑墨潑彩技法，將傳統繪畫美學和宇宙觀與世界潮流接軌，以巨匠之手鎔鑄古今，完成中國繪畫的革新。張大千於一九二○至三○年代因學習及模仿石濤，在上海聲譽鵲起，帶動了一股二十世紀的石濤風潮，他自己則藉石濤開啟早期別出心裁的布局和秀逸靈活的筆法。彼時他與另一位傳統型畫家溥心畬齊名，被稱為「南張北溥」，作者以二人畫作的一系列對比，說明因藝術道路上的選擇不同，二人日後所代表的時代意義也就迥異了。抗戰期間，張大千因個人獨到的歷史眼光，在戰火中遠赴敦煌臨摹壁畫，使唐代寫實風格重生於他的人物畫（仕女）中，唐人濃豔的用色也深刻影響他日後的潑彩山水。後來寄寓海外，感受到抽象表現主義的世界潮流，催化了他的潑墨與潑彩風格相繼誕生，開中國山水畫「前無古人」之新境。▎〈卷二〉張大千的青綠山水 探究張大千早、中、晚期的青綠山水張大千是中國畫家中用色最成功也最獨特的，對顏色的使用大膽、敏銳，無人能及。本書收錄了他早、中、晚期的諸多代表性作品，透過大量代表性畫作，作者帶領我們細看他早期青綠山水畫作中的仿古與創新，中期青綠山水畫作中的敦煌影響與他對傳世古畫的復古，及至晚年大開大闔、開創天風海雨般的潑彩。一路深入剖析，搭配畫作實例，讓觀者得以一步步領略張大千不同時期的青綠山水之用色、布局、筆法、胸臆。▎〈卷三〉張大千的人物畫 探究張大千的人物畫：自畫像、仕女畫張大千是近代畫家中首見，長期大量的創作自畫像，用於社交及自我宣傳

An innovative examination of heritage politics in Japan, showing how castles have been used to re-invent and recapture competing versions of the pre-imperial past and project possibilities for Japan's future. Oleg Benesch and Ran Zwigenberg argue that Japan's modern transformations can be traced through its castles. They examine how castle preservation and reconstruction campaigns served as symbolic ways to assert particular views of the past and were crucial in the making of an idealized premodern history. Castles have been used to craft identities, to create and erase memories, and to symbolically join tradition and modernity. Until 1945, they served as physical and symbolic links between the modern military and the nation's premodern martial heritage. After 1945, castles were cleansed of military elements and transformed into public cultural spaces that celebrated both modernity and the pre-imperial past. What were once signs of military power have become symbols of Japan's idealize

"This study shows how goods and consumption embodied modernity in the time of Porfirio Daiaz. Through case studies of tobacco marketing, department stores, advertising, shoplifting, and a famous jewel

This groundbreaking study illuminates the Egyptian experience of modernity by critically analyzing the foremost medium through which it was articulated: history. The first comprehensive analysis of a

Turn On, Tune In, Drift Off: Ambient Music's Psychedelic Past rethinks the history and socioaesthetics of ambient music as a popular genre with roots in the psychedelic countercultures of the late twentieth century. Victor Szabo reveals how anglophone audio producers and DJs between themid-1960s and century's end commodified drone- and loop-based records as ambient audio: slow, spare, spacious audio sold as artful personal media for creating atmosphere, fostering contemplation, transforming awareness, and stilling the body. The book takes a trip through landmark ambient audio productions and related discourses, including marketing rhetoric, artist manifestos and interviews, and music criticism, that during this time plotted the conventions of what became known as ambient music. These productions include nature soundsrecords, experimental avant-garde pieces, space music radio, psychedelic and cosmic rock albums, electronic dance music compilations, and of course, explicitly ambient musi

In this volume, Arieh Saposnik examines the complicated relations between nationalism and religious (and non-religious) redemptive traditions through the case study of Zionism. He provides a new framework for understanding the central ideas of this movement and its relationship to traditional Jewish ideas, Christian thought, and modern secular messianisms. Providing a longue-durée and broad view of the central themes and motivations in the making of Zionism, Saposnik connects its intellectual history with the concrete development of the Zionist project in Israel in its cultural, social, and political history. Saposnik demonstrates how Zionism offers lessons for a politics in which human perfectibility continues to serve as a guiding light and as a counter-narrative to the contemporary politics of self-interest, self-promotion and 'post-truth.' This is a study that bears implications for our understanding of modernity, of space and place, history and historical trajectories, and the pla

An innovative examination of heritage politics in Japan, showing how castles have been used to re-invent and recapture competing versions of the pre-imperial past and project possibilities for Japan's future. Oleg Benesch and Ran Zwigenberg argue that Japan's modern transformations can be traced through its castles. They examine how castle preservation and reconstruction campaigns served as symbolic ways to assert particular views of the past and were crucial in the making of an idealized premodern history. Castles have been used to craft identities, to create and erase memories, and to symbolically join tradition and modernity. Until 1945, they served as physical and symbolic links between the modern military and the nation's premodern martial heritage. After 1945, castles were cleansed of military elements and transformed into public cultural spaces that celebrated both modernity and the pre-imperial past. What were once signs of military power have become symbols of Japan's idealize

Education in general, and education for deaf learners in particular, has gone through significant changes over the past three decades. And change certainly will be the buzzword in the foreseeable futu

Mothers and daughters share a special bond. . . why not further this bond through reading together? Book clubs have been growing in popularity over the past ten years, started by a variety of people

This groundbreaking study illuminates the Egyptian experience of modernity by critically analyzing the foremost medium through which it was articulated: history. The first comprehensive analysis of a

Mini Architects harnesses the enduring fascination young children have with building to introduce them to architecture and structures from around the world.Designed to engage young children with architecture through creative art projects, Mini Architects takes inspiration from some of the most famous architectural wonders of the past and present, including the ancient Pyramids of Giza, Stonehenge and Le Corbusier's Cité Radieuse.Mini architects can choose from a variety of easy-to-make projects using simple materials and featuring a range of interesting techniques, ideal for teaching new motor skills. Step-by-step photographs and clear instructions are easy to follow for both children and adults, and each project requires minimal set up and clean up, to ensure the maximum amount of time is spent creating together.Each project is accompanied by photographic reproductions of the famous buildings that inspired them, along with fun facts and questions about the structures and their archite

Winner of the 2020 Manga Taisho Grand Prize! A manga about the struggles and rewards of a life dedicated to art. Popular guy Yatora realizes he's just going through the motions to make other people happy and finds himself in a new passion: painting. But untethering yourself from all your past expectations is dangerous as well as thrilling... Now a hit anime! Yatora studies hard and gets good grades, and he parties hard, staying out late drinking and watching soccer with his friends. He checks all the boxes he needs to be the perfect high school student. But it all starts to feel empty, and he begins to wonder what part of his life expresses who he is...or even if he has a unique voice at all. Then he wanders into the art room one day, and a lone painting captures his eye, awakening him to a kind of beauty he never knew. Compelled and consumed, he dives in headfirst--and he's about to learn how savage, unforgiving, and exhilirating creating art can be!

Winner of the 2020 Manga Taisho Grand Prize! A manga about the struggles and rewards of a life dedicated to art. Popular guy Yatora realizes he's just going through the motions to make other people happy and finds himself in a new passion: painting. But untethering yourself from all your past expectations is dangerous as well as thrilling...Now a hit anime!Yatora studies hard and gets good grades, and he parties hard, staying out late drinking and watching soccer with his friends. He checks all the boxes he needs to be the perfect high school student. But it all starts to feel empty, and he begins to wonder what part of his life expresses who he is...or even if he has a unique voice at all. Then he wanders into the art room one day, and a lone painting captures his eye, awakening him to a kind of beauty he never knew. Compelled and consumed, he dives in headfirst--and he's about to learn how savage, unforgiving, and exhilirating creating art can be!

Philip Gorrivan does not merely decorate. Instead, he creates a unique and authentic narrative of his clients' next chapter through the singular surroundings he designs for them.Incorporating vivid hues, a palette of intriguing textures, and a scholarly understanding of exquisite objects, art, and furnishings, his work transcends period and milieu. His aesthetic spans the globe and the decades, from 18th-century English and European antiques to vintage French Modernism and the work of the finest international contemporary artisans. His projects, tailored and layered, are reminiscent of the stylish past, but always utterly up to date.From the first meeting to the installation day, Gorrivan strives to write the next chapter in his clients' lives as reflected in their singular surroundings. You will see those stories evidenced in the thirteen projects featured on the pages of this book. Gorrivan is master at creating ambiance with surprising, simple gestures. His magic lies in an ability

The Kamogawa Food Detectives is the first book in the bestselling, mouth-watering Japanese series for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold. What's the one dish you'd do anything to taste just one more time? Down a quiet backstreet in Kyoto exists a very special restaurant. Run by Koishi Kamogawa and her father Nagare, the Kamogawa Diner serves up deliciously extravagant meals. But that's not the main reason customers stop by . . . The father-daughter duo are 'food detectives'. Through ingenious investigations, they are able to recreate dishes from a person's treasured memories - dishes that may well hold the keys to their forgotten past and future happiness. The restaurant of lost recipes provides a link to vanished moments, creating a present full of possibility. A bestseller in Japan, The Kamogawa Food Detectives is a celebration of good company and the power of a delicious meal.

This book examines lawyers' contributions to creating and maintaining the rule of law, one of the pillars of a liberal democracy. It moves from the European Enlightenment to the modern day, exploring the role of judges, government lawyers, and private practitioners in creating, defining, and being defined by, the demands of modern society. The book is divided into 4 parts representing the big themes. The first part considers lawyers' contribution to the growth of constitutionalism, the second, the formulation of roles and identities, and the third the formation of values. The fourth part focuses on the challenges faced by lawyers and the rule of law in the past 50 years, the neoliberal period, and how they challenge both conceptions of lawyers and the rule of law. Each part is illustrated by defining events, from the execution of Charles I, through the Nuremberg Trials, to the insurrection by supporters of Donald Trump in January 2021.Although the focus is on England and Wales, paral

Big History seeks to retell the human story in light of scientific advances by such methods as radiocarbon dating and genetic analysis. This book provides a deep, causal view of the forces that have shaped the universe, the earth, and humanity. Starting with the Big Bang and the formation of the earth, it traces the evolutionary history of the world, focusing on humanity's origins. It also explores the many natural forces shaping humanity, especially the evolution of the brain and behaviour. Moving through time, the causes of such important transformations as agriculture, complex societies, the industrial revolution, the enlightenment, and modernity are placed in the context of underlying changes in demography, learning, and social organization. Humans are biological creatures, operating with instincts evolved millions of years ago, but in the context of a rapidly changing world, and as we try to adapt to new circumstances, we must regularly reckon with our deep past.

Big History seeks to retell the human story in light of scientific advances by such methods as radiocarbon dating and genetic analysis. This book provides a deep, causal view of the forces that have shaped the universe, the earth, and humanity. Starting with the Big Bang and the formation of the earth, it traces the evolutionary history of the world, focusing on humanity's origins. It also explores the many natural forces shaping humanity, especially the evolution of the brain and behaviour. Moving through time, the causes of such important transformations as agriculture, complex societies, the industrial revolution, the enlightenment, and modernity are placed in the context of underlying changes in demography, learning, and social organization. Humans are biological creatures, operating with instincts evolved millions of years ago, but in the context of a rapidly changing world, and as we try to adapt to new circumstances, we must regularly reckon with our deep past.

Winner of the 2020 Manga Taisho Grand Prize! A manga about the struggles and rewards of a life dedicated to art. Popular guy Yatora realizes he’s just going through the motions to make other people happy and finds himself in a new passion: painting. But untethering yourself from all your past expectations is dangerous as well as thrilling…Yatora studies hard and gets good grades, and he parties hard, staying out late drinking and watching soccer with his friends. He checks all the boxes he needs to be the perfect high school student. But it all starts to feel empty, and he begins to wonder what part of his life expresses who he is…or even if he has a unique voice at all. Then he wanders into the art room one day, and a lone painting captures his eye, awakening him to a kind of beauty he never knew. Compelled and consumed, he dives in headfirst—and he’s about to learn how savage, unforgiving, and exhilirating creating art can be!

Winner of the 2020 Manga Taisho Grand Prize! A manga about the struggles and rewards of a life dedicated to art. Popular guy Yatora realizes he’s just going through the motions to make other people happy and finds himself in a new passion: painting. But untethering yourself from all your past expectations is dangerous as well as thrilling…Yatora studies hard and gets good grades, and he parties hard, staying out late drinking and watching soccer with his friends. He checks all the boxes he needs to be the perfect high school student. But it all starts to feel empty, and he begins to wonder what part of his life expresses who he is…or even if he has a unique voice at all. Then he wanders into the art room one day, and a lone painting captures his eye, awakening him to a kind of beauty he never knew. Compelled and consumed, he dives in headfirst—and he’s about to learn how savage, unforgiving, and exhilirating creating art can be!

Winner of the 2020 Manga Taisho Grand Prize A manga about the struggles and rewards of a life dedicated to art. Popular guy Yatora realizes he's just going through the motions to make other people happy and finds himself in a new passion: painting. But untethering yourself from all your past expectations is dangerous as well as thrilling... Yatora studies hard and gets good grades, and he parties hard, staying out late drinking and watching soccer with his friends. He checks all the boxes he needs to be the perfect high school student. But it all starts to feel empty, and he begins to wonder what part of his life expresses who he is...or even if he has a unique voice at all. Then he wanders into the art room one day, and a lone painting captures his eye, awakening him to a kind of beauty he never knew. Compelled and consumed, he dives in headfirst--and he's about to learn how savage, unforgiving, and exhilirating creating art can be

Victoria Shorr's remarkable gift for depicting the inner lives of complex characters shines in two powerful explorations of family, ambition, class, and status.In "Great Uncle Edward," a family gathers for dinner. At 93, Great Uncle Edward commands the table in his three-piece suit; Cousin Russell attended both Harvard and Yale but is now reduced to selling off the family books; sisters Betty and Molly are caught between ghosts of a storied past and creeping destitution. These lives are signposts along the downward spiral of an old aristocracy."Cleveland Auto Wrecking" introduces Sam White, an immigrant from somewhere in eastern Europe. He cannot read, but has a gift for math and an instinct for the value of junk. We follow his clan through the Depression to the postwar boom in the West, where their fortunes soar, creating new tests of loyalty.

Winner of the 2020 Manga Taisho Grand Prize A manga about the struggles and rewards of a life dedicated to art. Popular guy Yatora realizes he's just going through the motions to make other people happy and finds himself in a new passion: painting. But untethering yourself from all your past expectations is dangerous as well as thrilling... Yatora studies hard and gets good grades, and he parties hard, staying out late drinking and watching soccer with his friends. He checks all the boxes he needs to be the perfect high school student. But it all starts to feel empty, and he begins to wonder what part of his life expresses who he is...or even if he has a unique voice at all. Then he wanders into the art room one day, and a lone painting captures his eye, awakening him to a kind of beauty he never knew. Compelled and consumed, he dives in headfirst--and he's about to learn how savage, unforgiving, and exhilirating creating art can be

Winner of the 2020 Manga Taisho Grand Prize A manga about the struggles and rewards of a life dedicated to art. Popular guy Yatora realizes he's just going through the motions to make other people happy and finds himself in a new passion: painting. But untethering yourself from all your past expectations is dangerous as well as thrilling... Yatora studies hard and gets good grades, and he parties hard, staying out late drinking and watching soccer with his friends. He checks all the boxes he needs to be the perfect high school student. But it all starts to feel empty, and he begins to wonder what part of his life expresses who he is...or even if he has a unique voice at all. Then he wanders into the art room one day, and a lone painting captures his eye, awakening him to a kind of beauty he never knew. Compelled and consumed, he dives in headfirst--and he's about to learn how savage, unforgiving, and exhilirating creating art can be

In a tempestuous narrative that sweeps across five continents and seven centuries, this book explains how a succession of catastrophes--from the devastating Black Death of 1350 through the coming climate crisis of 2050--has produced a relentless succession of rising empires and fading world orders. During the long centuries of Iberian and British imperial rule, the quest for new forms of energy led to the development of the colonial sugar plantation as a uniquely profitable kind of commerce. In a time when issues of race and social justice have arisen with pressing urgency, the book explains how the plantation's extraordinary profitability relied on a production system that literally worked the slaves to death, creating an insatiable appetite for new captives that made the African slave trade a central feature of modern capitalism for over four centuries. After surveying past centuries roiled by imperial wars, national revolutions, and the struggle for human rights, the closing chapter

A History of Irish Women's Poetry is a ground-breaking and comprehensive account of Irish women's poetry from earliest times to the present day. It reads Irish women's poetry through many prisms – mythology, gender, history, the nation – and most importantly, close readings of the poetry itself. It covers major figures, such as Máire Mhac an tSaoi, Eavan Boland, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, as well as neglected figures from the past. Writing in both English and Irish is considered, and close attention paid to the many different contexts in which Irish women's poetry has been produced and received, from the anonymous work of the early medieval period, through the bardic age, the coterie poets of Anglo-Ireland, the nationalist balladeers of Young Ireland, the Irish Literary Revival, and the advent of modernity. As capacious as it is diverse, this book is an essential contribution to scholarship in the field.

Winner of the 2020 Manga Taisho Grand Prize A manga about the struggles and rewards of a life dedicated to art. Popular guy Yatora realizes he's just going through the motions to make other people happy and finds himself in a new passion: painting. But untethering yourself from all your past expectations is dangerous as well as thrilling... Yatora studies hard and gets good grades, and he parties hard, staying out late drinking and watching soccer with his friends. He checks all the boxes he needs to be the perfect high school student. But it all starts to feel empty, and he begins to wonder what part of his life expresses who he is...or even if he has a unique voice at all. Then he wanders into the art room one day, and a lone painting captures his eye, awakening him to a kind of beauty he never knew. Compelled and consumed, he dives in headfirst--and he's about to learn how savage, unforgiving, and exhilirating creating art can be

Few phenomena embody the notion of time as well as fashion. Fast-moving and rooted in the 'now', it's constantly creating its own past through the process of rapid style change. Uniquely poised betwee

Few phenomena embody the notion of time as well as fashion. Fast-moving and rooted in the 'now', it's constantly creating its own past through the process of rapid style change. Uniquely poised betwee

The Female of the Species and Edgar Award–winning author Mindy McGinnis delivers a powerful exploration of the opioid crisis through the eyes of one girl, creating a visceral and necessary story about addiction, family, and friendship. Now in paperback.Mickey Catalan’s life has been littered with struggles—from the scars that tell of past injuries, to her parents’ divorce, to the daily complexity of finding the right words to fit in socially. Mickey is no stranger to pain, emotional or physical.When a car crash sidelines her months before softball season, Mickey has to find a way to hold on to her spot as the catcher for a team expected to make a historic tournament run. Behind the plate is the only place she’s ever felt comfortable, and the painkillers she’s been prescribed can help her get back there.The pills do more than take away pain; they make her feel good. With a new circle of friends—fellow injured athletes, others with just time to kill—Mickey finds peaceful acceptance and p

SHORTLISTED FOR THE SLIGHTLY FOXED BEST FIRST BIOGRAPHY AWARD 2018'If we get another literary biography in 2018 as astute and feelingful as this one, we shall be lucky.' - John Carey, Sunday TimesMary Shelley was brought up by her father in a house filled with radical thinkers, poets, philosophers and writers of the day. Aged sixteen, she eloped with Percy Bysshe Shelley, embarking on a relationship that was lived on the move across Britain and Europe, as she coped with debt, infidelity and the deaths of three children, before early widowhood changed her life forever. Most astonishingly, it was while she was still a teenager that Mary composed her canonical novel Frankenstein, creating two of our most enduring archetypes today.The life story is well-known. But who was the woman who lived it? She's left plenty of evidence, and in this fascinating dialogue with the past, Fiona Sampson sifts through letters, diaries and records to find the real woman behind the story. She uncovers a compl

The Archaeology and Ethnography of Central Africa provides the first detailed description of the prehistory of the Loango coast of west-central Africa over the course of more than 3000 years. The archaeological data presented in this volume comes from a pivotal area through which, as linguistic and historical reconstructions have long indicated, Bantu-speaking peoples expanded before reaching eastern and southern Africa. Despite its historical importance, the prehistory of the Atlantic coastal regions of west-central Africa has until now remained almost unknown. James Denbow offers an imaginative approach to this subject, integrating the scientific side of fieldwork with the interplay of history, ethnography, politics, economics, and personalities. The resulting 'anthropology of archaeology' highlights the connections between past and present, change and modernity, in one of the most inaccessible and poorly known regions of west-central and southern Africa.

Based on a decade of fieldwork in southeastern Ghana and analysis of secondary sources, this book aims to reconstruct the religious history of the Anlo-Ewe peoples from the 1850s. In particular, it focuses on a corpus of rituals collectively known as 'Fofie', which derived their legitimacy from engaging with the memory of the slave-holding past. The Anlo developed a sense of discomfort about their agency in slavery in the early twentieth century which they articulated through practices such as ancestor veneration, spirit possession, and by forging links with descendants of peoples they formerly enslaved. Conversion to Christianity, engagement with 'modernity', trans-Atlantic conversations with diasporan Africans, and citizenship of the postcolonial state coupled with structural changes within the religious system - which resulted in the decline in Fofie's popularity - gradually altered the moral emphases of legacies of slavery in the Anlo historical imagination as the twentieth century

Based on a decade of fieldwork in southeastern Ghana and analysis of secondary sources, this book aims to reconstruct the religious history of the Anlo-Ewe peoples from the 1850s. In particular, it focuses on a corpus of rituals collectively known as 'Fofie', which derived their legitimacy from engaging with the memory of the slave-holding past. The Anlo developed a sense of discomfort about their agency in slavery in the early twentieth century which they articulated through practices such as ancestor veneration, spirit possession, and by forging links with descendants of peoples they formerly enslaved. Conversion to Christianity, engagement with 'modernity', trans-Atlantic conversations with diasporan Africans, and citizenship of the postcolonial state coupled with structural changes within the religious system - which resulted in the decline in Fofie's popularity - gradually altered the moral emphases of legacies of slavery in the Anlo historical imagination as the twentieth century

Romance, Diaspora, and Black Atlantic Literature offers a rich, interdisciplinary treatment of modern black literature and cultural history, showing how debates over Africa in the works of major black writers generated productive models for imagining political agency. Yogita Goyal analyzes the tensions between romance and realism in the literature of the African diaspora, examining a remarkably diverse group of twentieth-century authors, including W. E. B. Du Bois, Chinua Achebe, Richard Wright, Ama Ata Aidoo and Caryl Phillips. Shifting the center of black diaspora studies by considering Africa as constitutive of black modernity rather than its forgotten past, Goyal argues that it is through the figure of romance that the possibility of diaspora is imagined across time and space. Drawing on literature, political history and postcolonial theory, this significant addition to the cross-cultural study of literatures will be of interest to scholars of African American studies, African stud

Simon Goldhill offers a fresh and exciting perspective on how the Victorians used material culture to express their sense of the past in an age of progress, especially the biblical past and the past of classical antiquity. From Pompeian skulls on a writer's desk, to religious paraphernalia in churches, new photographic images of the Holy Land and the remaking of the cityscape of Jerusalem and Britain, Goldhill explores the remarkable way in which the nineteenth century's sense of history was reinvented through things. The Buried Life of Things shows how new technologies changed how history was discovered and analysed, and how material objects could flare into significance in bitter controversies, and then fade into obscurity and disregard again. This book offers a new route into understanding the Victorians' complex and often bizarre attempts to use their past to express their own modernity.

Too Weak to Govern investigates the power of the majority party in the United States Senate through a study of the appropriations process over a period of nearly four decades. It uses quantitative analysis, case studies, and interviews with policy makers to show that the majority party is more likely to abandon routine procedures for passing spending bills in favor of creating massive 'omnibus' spending bills when it is small, divided, and ideologically distant from the minority. This book demonstrates that the majority party's ability to influence legislative outcomes is greater than previously understood but that it operates under important constraints. However, the majority generally cannot use its power to push its preferred policies through to approval. Overall, the weakness of the Senate majority party is a major reason for the breakdown of the congressional appropriations process over the past forty years.

Too Weak to Govern investigates the power of the majority party in the United States Senate through a study of the appropriations process over a period of nearly four decades. It uses quantitative analysis, case studies, and interviews with policy makers to show that the majority party is more likely to abandon routine procedures for passing spending bills in favor of creating massive 'omnibus' spending bills when it is small, divided, and ideologically distant from the minority. This book demonstrates that the majority party's ability to influence legislative outcomes is greater than previously understood but that it operates under important constraints. However, the majority generally cannot use its power to push its preferred policies through to approval. Overall, the weakness of the Senate majority party is a major reason for the breakdown of the congressional appropriations process over the past forty years.