Tactical Reality Dictionary

Culture is not just the expression of individual interests and orientations, manifested in groups according to rules and habits. It also offersidentification with a system of values. The construction

American folk music has long presented a problematic conception of authenticity, but the reality of the folk scene, and its relationship to media, is far more complicated. This book draws on the field

Joining his previous titles Strategic Reality Dictionary and Tactical Reality Dictionary, Vienna-based cultural critic Konrad Becker offers another 72-key manifesto of deep politics and cultural intel

In a world where the "death of print" has become a near reality, Anana Johnson, an employee at the North American Dictionary of the English Language (NADEL), searches for her missing father and stumbl

Counterinsurgency has staked its claim in the new century as the new American way of war. Yet, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have revived a historical debate about the costs - monetary, political and moral - of operations designed to eliminate insurgents and build nations. Today's counterinsurgency proponents point to 'small wars' past to support their view that the enemy is 'biddable' if the correct tactical formulas are applied. Douglas Porch's sweeping history of counterinsurgency campaigns carried out by the three 'providential nations' of France, Britain and the United States, ranging from nineteenth-century colonial conquests to General Petraeus' 'Surge' in Iraq, challenges the contemporary mythologising of counterinsurgency as a humane way of war. The reality, he reveals, is that 'hearts and minds' has never been a recipe for lasting stability and that past counterinsurgency campaigns have succeeded not through state-building but by shattering and dividing societies while uns

Counterinsurgency has staked its claim in the new century as the new American way of war. Yet, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have revived a historical debate about the costs - monetary, political and moral - of operations designed to eliminate insurgents and build nations. Today's counterinsurgency proponents point to 'small wars' past to support their view that the enemy is 'biddable' if the correct tactical formulas are applied. Douglas Porch's sweeping history of counterinsurgency campaigns carried out by the three 'providential nations' of France, Britain and the United States, ranging from nineteenth-century colonial conquests to General Petraeus' 'Surge' in Iraq, challenges the contemporary mythologising of counterinsurgency as a humane way of war. The reality, he reveals, is that 'hearts and minds' has never been a recipe for lasting stability and that past counterinsurgency campaigns have succeeded not through state-building but by shattering and dividing societies while uns

First published in 1973, this is a study of the literary and archaeological developments in the warfare of early Greece. Dr Greenhalgh considers in particular the military history of the chariot and mounted horse, both as they were represented in poetry and art and as they were used in reality from about 1100 to 500BC. He finds the picture superficially presented by the sources incoherent and often incredible, and attempts a reconstruction which does justice to both tactical and technical possibilities and to the social and economic facts of life in the period. He shoes how the Homeric poems, for example, can be systematically misleading - in part misconceiving the character of the Mycenaean age, and in part conflating with this misconception the conditions of their own time. This illustrated study will be of value to archaeologists, historians of warfare and Homeric specialists; its wider implications will interest social and political historians.

The dictionary definition of tradition refers to beliefs and practices that have been transmitted from generation to generation, however, 'tradition' can rest simply on the claim that certain cultural elements are rooted in the past. Claim and documented historical reality need not overlap. In the domain of religion, historically verifiable traditions coexist with recent innovations whose origins are spuriously projected back into time. This book examines the phenomenon of 'invented traditions' in religions ranging in time from Zoroastrianism to Scientology, and geographically from Tibet to North America and Europe. The various contributions, together with an introduction that surveys the field, use individual case studies to address questions such as the rationale for creating historical tradition for one's doctrines and rituals; the mechanisms by which hitherto unknown texts can enter an existing corpus; and issues of acceptance and scepticism in the reception of dubious texts.

The only figure in the Dictionary of National Biography who is said never to have existed, Robin Hood has taken on an air of reality few historical figures achieve. His image in various guises has bee

Does a word mean what it says? Sometimes - but not always. Everyone thinks that meaning is contained within words - like sardines in a tin, or milk in a bottle. After all, words are nice stable things that you can look up in a dictionary aren't they? But dictionaries only take us so far… If you eavesdropped on a teenage conversation, rushing to a dictionary - with its definitions frozen in time - wouldn't help much. Who's using a word and to whom, in what context, for what purpose - all these influence the meaning of the language we use. The word's origins and history (its 'genetics') also help. Try teaching yourself another language from a phrasebook and you'll soon learn that you can be correct, in the formal sense, but still way behind the times in reality. In this book Wajnryb considers these and other questions to explore how and why our language works the way it does.

The dictionary definition of tradition refers to beliefs and practices that have been transmitted from generation to generation, however, 'tradition' can rest simply on the claim that certain cultural elements are rooted in the past. Claim and documented historical reality need not overlap. In the domain of religion, historically verifiable traditions coexist with recent innovations whose origins are spuriously projected back into time. This book examines the phenomenon of 'invented traditions' in religions ranging in time from Zoroastrianism to Scientology, and geographically from Tibet to North America and Europe. The various contributions, together with an introduction that surveys the field, use individual case studies to address questions such as the rationale for creating historical tradition for one's doctrines and rituals; the mechanisms by which hitherto unknown texts can enter an existing corpus; and issues of acceptance and scepticism in the reception of dubious texts.

A unique reference for all those using the new electronic 'multimedia' arts, The Cyberspace Lexicon provides a much-needed guide through the maze of existing and emerging technologies. From arcade ga