This volume explores the ways that Charles Dickens appropriated and made central to his novels the dominant symbol of his age. The author argues that Dickens' contribution to the iconographic and narrative traditions was to fuse the classical image of the wheel - fortune - with the industrial one.

Available digitally for the first time! Fortune doesn’t shine on Guinevere Jones and Zac Justis; it puts them on the trail of a cunning charlatan in this riveting novel from New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz writing as Jayne Castle. When Guinevere Jones discovers that a so-called fortune-teller is making big profits by deceiving her clients, she vows to expose the scam. Now Zac—who will do anything to keep Gwen safe—helps her uncover the deadly deceptions of a blackmailer and killer out to destroy every trace of the past…

Reading Russian Fortunes examines the huge popularity and cultural impact of fortune-telling among urban and literate Russians from the eighteenth century to the present. Based partly on a study of the numerous editions of little fortune-telling books, especially those devoted to dream interpretation, it documents and analyses the social history of fortune-telling in terms of class and gender, at the same time considering the function of both amateur and professional fortune-telling in a literate modernizing society. Chapters are devoted to professional fortune-tellers and their clients, and to the publishers of the books. An analysis of the relationship between urban fortune-telling and traditional oral culture, where divination played a very significant role, leads on to a discussion of the underlying reasons for the persistence of fortune-telling in modern Russian society.

Today's top financial-risk professionals have come to rely on ever-more sophisticated mathematics in their attempts to come to grips with financial risk. But this excessive reliance on quantitative precision is misleading--and it puts us all at risk. This is the case that Riccardo Rebonato makes in Plight of the Fortune Tellers--and coming from someone who is both an experienced market professional and an academic, this heresy is worth listening to. Rebonato forcefully argues that we must restore genuine decision making to our financial planning, and he shows us how to do it using probability, experimental psychology, and decision theory. This is the only way to effectively manage financial risk in a manner congruent with how human beings actually react to chance. Rebonato challenges us to rethink the standard wisdom about probability in financial-risk management. Risk managers have become obsessed with measuring risk and believe that these quantitative results by themselves can guide sound financial choices--but they can't. In this book, Rebonato offers a radical yet surprisingly commonsense solution, one that seeks to remind us that managing risk comes down to real people making decisions under uncertainty. Plight of the Fortune Tellers is not only a book for the decision makers of Wall Street, it's a must-read for anyone concerned about how today's financial markets are run. The stakes have never been higher--can you risk it?

Provides expert help you need to make difficult bio-ethical decisions, covering a broad range of current and future health care issues, as well as institutional and social issues applicable to multiple disciplines and settings.