Pagodas in Play analyzes the treatment of China in the imaginative and spectacular world of eighteenth-century Italian opera. It shows how Italians used perceptions of Chinese culture to address local and transnational developments, particularly Enlightenment and secular reform initiatives. Its focus on the texts and performance practices of opera, an entertainment form accessible to a wide public, reveals cultural operations and identities harder to detect in non-fictional reformist writings, the texts traditionally privileged to explain Italian mediations of Enlightenment ideas. In its close reading of nine libretti of the most salient Settecento operas treating China (opere serie and opere buffe by authors including Metastasio, Zeno, Goldoni and Lorenzi), Pagodas in Play differentiates Italian iterations of Chinese culture from French and English counterparts. It further challenges certain tenets of orientalism, showing how it operates when nationalist and/or colonialist projects are absent, and how orientalist practices in eighteenth-century Italy exhibit early on the complexity some scholars locate only in the twentieth century. Adrienne Ward teaches Italian literature and culture at the University of Virginia.

This book is an overview of the ongoing revolution in tabletop gaming design and culture, which exploded to unprecedented levels of vitality in the 21st century, leading to new ways of creating, marketing, and experiencing a game. Designers have become superstars, publishers have improved quality control, and the community of players is expanding. Most importantly, new and old players have started engaging with the games in a more meaningful way. The book explores the reasons for these changes. It describes how games have begun to keep players engaged until the end. It analyzes the ways in which traditional mechanics have been reimagined to give them more variety and complexity, and reviews the unprecedented mechanics found and perfected. Very interesting is the exploration of how games have performed novel tasks such as reducing conflict, fostering cooperation, creating aesthetic experiences, and telling stories. The book is aimed at scholars, dedicated and aspiring fans, and game designers who want to expand their toolbox with the most up-to-date innovations in the profession.

In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the reception of such waves and their perception by the brain.[1] Only acoustic waves that have frequencies lying between about 20 Hz and 20 kHz, the audio frequency range, elicit an auditory percept in humans. In air at atmospheric pressure, these represent sound waves with wavelengths of 17 meters (56 ft) to 1.7 centimeters (0.67 in). Sound waves above 20 kHz are known as ultrasound and are not audible to humans. Sound waves below 20 Hz are known as infrasound. Different animal species have varying hearing ranges. Acoustics is the interdisciplinary science that deals with the study of mechanical waves in gasses, liquids, and solids including vibration, sound, ultrasound, and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician, while someone working in the field of acoustical engineering may be called an acoustical engineer.[2] An audio engineer, on the other hand, is concerned with the recording, manipulation, mixing, and reproduction of sound. Applications of acoustics are found in almost all aspects of modern society, subdisciplines include aeroacoustics, audio signal processing, architectural acoustics, bioacoustics, electro-acoustics, environmental noise, musical acoustics, noise control, psychoacoustics, speech, ultrasound, underwater acoustics, and vibration.

Tigers, Mountains and Pagodas The story of a special and adventurous life At the end of 1923 Stanley Robins passed out of Sandhurst as a prize-winning cadet. He was commissioned into the North Staffordshire regiment, at the time based in British India. Stanley was "thrilled" at this posting as he saw army service in India as the gateway to a "special and adventurous life"; and so it turned out to be. In India Stanley became an expert and highly knowledgeable big game hunter, especially of tigers, including man-eaters and gained a deep affinity with the Indian Jungle and its wildlife. He became a lifelong friend of Jim Corbett; the greatest of the big game hunters. Like Jim he was to be an advocate for wildlife conservation and condemned post World War II hunting methods, especially in Africa. Army postings sent Stanley to the dangerous and volatile North-West Frontier, where "no man's life was safe". He was decorated for gallantry in one of the hardest fought operations on the Frontier. Despite the dangers of nearly constant action against the war-like border tribes he gained a deep knowledge of its people, the country and the culture. Whenever military postings allowed he was keen to visit and learn about the India that had put a "spell" on him; its varied peoples, culture and history and to visit the areas of India rarely seen by most Europeans. As international tensions grew in the late 1930s Stanley was transferred to what became the 14h Army in Burma, playing a vital part in the Allied fighting withdrawal from the "Land of Pagodas" and was decorated for his distinguished service. He was the last man out of Rangoon and the first through the Taukkyan Roadblock, by which the Japanese army hoped to trap Allied forces in Burma, in their lightning campaign. During the Allied liberation of Burma Stanley was personally selected by General Slim, commander of the 14th Army, to ensure effective, critical and growing logistical support for Allied forces, US, Chinese and British, in their advance against the Japanese. At Indian independence Stanley's actions and decisions on that day prevented what might have been a massacre of Europeans and loyal Indian Army soldiers at Nagpur.

A gorgeously illustrated survey of chinoiserie from the 18th century to today Chinoiserie is a term for Western art and design inspired by a largely invented vision of China. Marco Polo's sensational account of his visit to the exotic East in the 13th century sparked a fascination with China that reached a fever pitch in the 18th century and continues to this day. Art historian and artist Aldous Bertram has long been captivated by chinoiserie. Dragons & Pagodas is organized by theme, including porcelain, color and pattern, flora, fauna, and architecture. Each chapter is bursting with images ranging from grand European summer palaces and whimsical pagoda follies to charming details of screens, porcelain figurines, and ornate plasterwork. Complete with Bertram's own chinoiserie-inspired watercolors and collages, Dragons & Pagodas is an irresistible confection and an example of chinoiserie in its own right. -Cloth bound with edge stain