POF - Polymer Optical Fibers for Data Communication

Book Description

The main topic of the book is the use of Polymer Optical Fibres for data communication. The first two chapters describe the basic physics of optical fibres and the specific properties of POF. The next chapters summarise the history of POF development, including the explanation of different index profiles from the simple step index type to the graded index POF. The next three chapters give comprehensive review of sources for POF systems and published transmission systems including WDM and analogue systems. The calculation of power budgets is described, giving some examples and general formulas and guidelines. Measurement techniques and standards are the content of further chapters, closing with remarks on international POF activities.

Pof Polymer Optical Fibers for Data Communication

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Pof Polymer Optical Fibers for Data Communication
Olaf Ziemann
Manufacturer: Springer-Verlag New York, LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000MUY4YQ

Book Description

The Civilizing Process stands out as Norbert Elias' greatest work, tracing the 'civilizing' of manners and personality in Western Europe since the Middle Ages, and showing how this was related to the formation of states and the monopolization of power within them. It comprises the two volumes originally published in English as The History of Manners and State Formation and Civilization, now, in a single volume, the book is restored to its original format and made available world-wide to a new generation of readers.In this new edition, the original text is extensively revised, corrected, and updated. The Revised Edition reveals anew and afresh the greatness of Elias' masterpiece.

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I wonder if its complete.......2006-12-26

Both the German & the Dutch version of this work are much longer and stretch about 850 pages. This one is only 600 pages long, so I wonder where the other 250 are.

Apart from that its one of the most important books I think there ever have been published by any Sociologist. On of the few that really stands on par with Weber, Durkheim & Habermas (if you concider him as a sociologist).

I really want to read the rest also.

Impression of Norbert Elias' Civilizing Process.......2006-03-28

The work is a marvel of creative scholarship. Its organization and style unsurpassed. I would recommend it to anybody interested in the evolution of society and cultural history.

night and day.......2006-03-09

I first ordered this from an independent thru Amazon and got nothing and lies, then reordered thru Amazon and got it immediately, exactly like I always do from Amazon proper.

Know Thyself.......2003-01-10

We live our everyday lives shrouded in monotony, going about our business as if our existence was the most natural and unquestionable one, yet what our souls call "home" has actually been created in an extremely complex and all-encompassing process sometimes called Civilization.

In this very ambitious book, Norbert Elias examines both how our consciousness has been transformed by society, and how society itself has progressed as a result; that is, what mechanisms have propelled the transformation of our Western civilization from a violent and unrepressed, autarkic existence, to our infinitely interdependent, specialized and pacified modern nation-states.

By way of detailed analysis of historical documents, the author lets us explore how inter-personal relations have been transformed through the course of Western history, how our manners and behavior have been modelled by a changing environment, and in turn modified it, as illustrated by the most diverse situations like table manners, attitudes toward those of an inferior social standing, hygiene, and sexuality.

It is like glancing at our collective youth, oddly familiar and intimate, yet repulsive.

Elias then meticulously articulates by what forces feudalism eventually gave rise to ever more centralized and interdependent forms of government, and the corresponding specific changes in human behavior and attitudes, that are the cause, as much as the consequence, of such changes.

A couple of interesting ideas in this book specially relevant to current debate: how society's transformation isn't the design of anyone or a "conspiration" of sorts, but a process that obeys its own laws; how our form of government is very deeply dependent on all classes and peoples, thus enjoying very little freedom for gratuitous action; and how war isn't necessarily the opposite of peace, but the opportunity for ever larger zones of pacification to emerge.

All good lessons to re-learn today, specially by the Left, with its visions of evil conspiracies and its stubborn insistence on perpetuating strife and conflict by opposing lasting resolution by means of war.

Warriors Into Functionaries: Tamed Nobility & the State.......2001-10-24

Norbert Elais' The Civilizing Process is an explanation of the rise of the modern nation-state, and the process by which state formation engendered changes in the psyches and day-to-day manners of modern citizens. In short, his argument is that the functional complexity of post-medieval Europe went hand-in-hand with a sublimation of man's baser instincts. Upon first glance, the reader immediately wonders about the relevance of findings such as "in medieval society people generally blew their noses into their hands" (126). The dominant explanations for the rise of the modern nation-state have usually been based in economics (Marx, Polanyi, Moore, North & Thomas) and not in the sort of etiquette, manners and social customs that are the key operating concepts in Elias' work. However, Elias makes a convincing case that such customs deserve predominant explanatory weight, being vehicles of social control that lay the psychological groundwork for the nation-state. Such a finding helps political scientists answer the persistent question of why Western political institutions fail when placed into unfamiliar Third-World social environments. Most analysts have chalked this up to unequal economic development, but Elias would probably favor an argument emphasizing the lack of a "civilizing" process in Third-World societies. Such an explanation--like Putnam's reasoning in revealing Southern Italy's "civic culture" to be bankrupt--is admittedly open to criticism of essentialism, cultural determinism, and other postmodern shortcomings, but at a minimum, it certainly alerts us to pertinent, non-economic variables at work in the development-democracy relationship.

Elias selects three comparative cases, France, England and Germany, and performs a content analysis of medieval texts on manners, etiquette, and the transformation of the nobility from warriors into courtiers. These texts are the empirical evidence offered for his key variable, pan-European courtly manners delineated by social structure (classes and "monopolies" of power). The other key variable (it's rather unclear which one is "dependent" on the other) is the rise of the nation-state, which was brought about by an exogenous variable (population growth) as well as two intervening factors: 1) the decline of the nobility relative to national absolutism (both economically and militarily); and 2) the rise of a money economy. Elias shows how centrifugal forces in these societies (mainly the warrior-noble class) resisted the "integration" of absolutism/nationhood, but that these forces in the end were overcome by economics coupled with the centripetal social groundwork of pan-European "civilite" and social customs, leading to an increasingly complex interweaving of social functions. "Society was `in transition' . . . `Simplicity' . . . had been lost. People saw things with more differentiation" (61). "Social control was becoming more binding . . . with the structural transformation of society . . . a change slowly came about: the compulsion to check one's own behaviour" (70).

The near totality of Elias' evidence is qualitative, often selected from medieval writings and secondhand observations. Although he means to proceed inductively from these facts, Elias often reads like a deductive historian, especially when positing lawlike generalizations such as "the more or less sudden emergence of words within languages nearly always points to changes in the lives of people themselves, particularly when the new concepts are destined to become as central and long-lived as these" (48). In fact, his entire thesis can be summarized with another of his apparently deductive axioms: "The growth of units of integration and rule is always at the same time an expression of structural changes in society, that is to say, in human relationships" (254). Marxists, of course, would say that such social changes are themselves dependent upon changes in the relations of production, but Elias gives equal weight to social causes as to economic ones. The economy is by no means neglected in his analysis, since he gives currency, demand for property, and population growth prime explanatory roles in his causal process (despite the fact that there is no quantitative evidence given for these socioeconomic correlations, unlike the analysis of the same topics by North & Thomas). However, Marxists would surely have a fit over Elias' assertion that the civilizing process leads to a wholesale leveling of distinctions between social classes (430), as well as his claim that the modern state arose out of a virtual stalemate between the bourgeois and the nobility (327).

On the topic of state-society relations, Elias makes the provocative argument that for the past 300 years, "monopoly rulers" (including, but not limited to, absolutist kings) are mere functionaries, with the real power resting in the hands of their "subjects" (271). "Control of the centralized institutions themselves is so dispersed that it is difficult to discern clearly who are the rulers and who are the ruled" (315). Of course, under an instable balance of power (including today's Third World) the playing field is presumably up for grabs between different classes and parts of the state, but in a developed society, Elias would argue that the internalization of "civilized" norms means that the "strong" state, while resting on a cohesive social order, is not as autonomous from social forces as one might think.

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Etablierte und Außenseiter.
Norbert Elias , and John L. Scotson
Manufacturer: Suhrkamp
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 3518583182

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On Civilization, Power, and Knowledge: Selected Writings (Heritage of Sociology Series)
Norbert Elias
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Logic of Practice

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ASIN: 0226204324

Amazon.com

When a Roman man wished to marry, he bargained with the bride's family on the price, and the state had nothing to say about the matter. When he wished to divorce, he called a neighborhood meeting and announced his decision. If an Athenian athlete died in the course of a contest, he was declared the winner by default. If a French courtier wished to rise in social service, he or she needed to cultivate a skill for reading the constantly changing landscape of who was or was not in royal favor. Such data of everyday life fascinated the German historian Norbert Elias (1897-1990), who discusses these and other matters in this anthology of selections from books such as The Civilizing Process and The Society of Individuals. --Gregory McNamee

Book Description

Nobert Elias (1897-1990) is among the great sociologists of the twentieth century. Born in Germany, Elias earned a doctorate in philosophy and then turned to sociology, working with Max Weber's younger brother, Alfred Weber, and with Karl Mannheim. He later fled the Nazi regime in 1935 and spent most of his life in Britain. He is best known for his book, The Civilizing Process, wherein he traces the subtle changes in manners among the European upper classes since the Middle Ages, and shows how those seemingly innocuous changes in etiquette reflected profound transformations of power relations in society. He later applied these insights to a wide range of subjects, from art and culture to the control of violence, the sociology of sports, the development of knowledge and the sciences, and the methodology of sociology.

This volume is a carefully chosen collection of Elias's most important writings and includes many of his most brilliant ideas. The development of Elias's thinking during the course of his long career is traced along with a discussion of how his work relates to other major sociologists and how the various selections are interconnected. The result is a consistent and stimulating look at one of sociology's founding thinkers.

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A Classic one

The Germans
Norbert Elias
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Western | Europe | History | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0231105630

Book Description

-- Christian Science Monitor

The last major work by one of our century's most influential social theorists, The Germans is a penetrating account of German social development, from the seventeenth century to the present. Enhanced by his deep understanding of other Western European nations, Norbert Elias's incisive analyses of nationalism, violence, and the breakdown of civilization will be an indispensable resource for those interested in modern European history and sociology and in European studies.

Customer Reviews:

A Classic one.......1997-09-23

Norbert Elias gives us with this fantastic piece of work the BEST interpretation on the question of nacionalism(s). His text is so clear and yet so full of ideas that it keeps you reading until the very end.And it is not a very "friendly" theme. This one is for anybody who ever asked how and why nacionalism works as a powerful bond and wonders about the development of ideas in Germany until World War II. Definetly, a masterpiece

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Die Gesellschaft der Individuen.
Norbert Elias , and Michael Schröter
Manufacturer: Suhrkamp
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 3518285742

POWER AND CIVILITY (The Civilizing Process, Part 2)

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POWER AND CIVILITY (The Civilizing Process, Part 2)
Norbert Elias
Manufacturer: Pantheon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

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Civilization & Culture | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0394527690
Release Date: 1982-08-12

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Über sich selbst.
Norbert Elias , A. J. Heerma van Voss , and A. van Stolk
Manufacturer: Suhrkamp
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 3518133292

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Things did not happen that way

The Court Society
Norbert Elias
Manufacturer: Pantheon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Social History | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0394716043
Release Date: 1983-11-12

Customer Reviews:

Things did not happen that way.......2003-05-14

Historian Norbert Elias' classic works Court Society and The Civilizing Process have presented a problematic view of the Early Modern court, and with it, a false view of Early Modern monarchy. In that sense, Elias' approach to the early modern European court contains many misunderstandings, especially those connected with the much-heralded rise of the middle class and its inseparable companion, modernization. However, a wave of recent studies shows that the nobles were dominant much longer than we suspected. Though small in absolute numbers, the nobility controlled most of the land and all of the politics on the Continent until well into the 19th century; facing similar problems, from one country and culture to the next nobles responded to them in very similar ways. For instance, one may read "Myths of Power. Norbert Elias and the Early Modern European Court " by Jeroen Duindam (both a critical analysis of Norbert Elias' historical works and an interpretation of court life in early modern Europe, where Duindam submits Elias' interpretation to the test); or "Monarchy, Aristocracy, and the State in Europe, 1300-1800" by Hillay Zmora (who shows that throughout the period examined, the fisco-militaries exigencies of the age brought monarchy and nobility into close interdependence: the exploitation of the population to the mutual profit of rulers and ruling classes underlay much of the co-operation between them). In general, these two works present a more accurate view of monarchy, nobility, the court and the state contrary to that provided by Elias.
In addition to the two works already mentioned, other books that I would recommend to read would be "Nobilities in Transition 1550-1700: Courtiers and Rebels in Britain and Europe" by Ronald G. Asch and "The Persistence of the Ancient Regime" by Arno J. Mayer (covering approximately the 1815-1914 period).

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The Society of Individuals
Norbert Elias
Manufacturer: Continuum International Publishing Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Modern | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0826413722

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Zeugen des Jahrhunderts. Norbert Elias.
Norbert Elias , and Hans Christian Huf
Manufacturer: Ullstein Buchverlage GmbH & Co. KG / Ullstein Tas
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 3548332560

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