The Habsburg courtier Charles-Joseph Prince de Ligne seduced and symbolized eighteenth-century Europe. Speaking French, the international language of the day, he travelled between Paris and St Petersburg, charming everyone he met. He stayed with Madame du Barry, dined with Frederick the Great and travelled to the Crimea with Catherine the Great. But Ligne was more than a frivolous charmer. He participated in and recorded some of the most important events and movements of his day: the Enlightenment; the struggle for mastery in Germany; the decline of the Ottoman Empire; the birth of German nationalism; and the wars to liberate Europe from Napoleon. He had surprisingly radical views, believing for example in property rights for women, legal rights for Jews and the redistribution of wealth. He was also a highly respected writer and his books on gardens, his letters from the Crimea and his epigrams are considered minor classics of French literature.

The second volume of this modern account of Kaehlerian geometry and Hodge theory starts with the topology of families of algebraic varieties. The main results are the generalized Noether-Lefschetz theorems, the generic triviality of the Abel-Jacobi maps, and most importantly, Nori's connectivity theorem, which generalizes the above. The last part deals with the relationships between Hodge theory and algebraic cycles. The text is complemented by exercises offering useful results in complex algebraic geometry. Also available: Volume I 0-521-80260-1 Hardback $60.00 C

This adorable music notebook is perfect for staffs, kids and musicians. The high-quality manuscript book includes 110 pages of 12 staves. Let exercise your composing skills with this well-designed music sketchbook! Enjoy!

Thanks to improved food, medicine, and living conditions, the average age of the population is increasing throughout the modern industrialized world. Yet, despite the recent upsurge of scholarly interest in the lives of older people and the blossoming of historical demography, little historical demographic attention has been paid to the lives of the elderly. A landmark volume, Aging in the Past marks the emergence of the historical demographic study of aging. Following a masterly explication of the new field by Peter Laslett, leading scholars in family history and historical demography offer new research results and fresh analyses that greatly increase our understanding of aging, historically and across cultures. Focusing primarily on post-Industrial Europe and the United States, they explore a range of issues under the broad topics of living arrangements, widowhood, and retirement and mortality. This important work provides a much-needed historical perspective on and suggests possible alternative solutions to the problems of the aged. Thanks to improved food, medicine, and living conditions, the average age of the population is increasing throughout the modern industrialized world. Yet, despite the recent upsurge of scholarly interest in the lives of older people and the blossoming of historical demography, little historical demographic attention has been paid to the lives of the elderly. A landmark volume, Aging in the Past marks the emergence of the historical demographic study of aging. Following a masterly explication of the new field by Peter Laslett, leading scholars in family history and historical demography offer new research results and fresh analyses that greatly increase our understanding of aging, historically and across cultures. Focusing primarily on post-Industrial Europe and the United States, they explore a range of issues under the broad topics of living arrangements, widowhood, and retirement and mortality. This important work provides a much-needed historical perspective on and suggests possible alternative solutions to the problems of the aged.

This dramatization of Sir Walter Scott's The Surgeon's Daughter tells how an ambitious politician, Richard Darlington, murders his wife to further his political career, becoming the epitome of the saying, "All power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely."