Art et fantasme (L'Or d'Atalante)

Book Description

Jean, the owner of the barge "L'Atalante," marries Juliette. Though the erotic bond between the couple is strong, relations prove difficult. Eventually Juliette runs away. Jean searches for her, they are reunited. From this simple, almost banal story Jean Vigo fashioned what Marina Warner calls "one of the most tender and convincing love stories on film."
L'Atalante was the last film in Vigo's tragically short career; he died of tuberculosis in 1934 soon after its completion. Though indifferently received at first, in the past sixty years L'Atalante has achieved almost legendary status. The release of the restored version in 1990 was a triumph. In this book, a model of how to write about cinema, Marina Warner shows that the greatness of the film is not in the story but in the manner of its telling. Vigo's extraordinary style--as fresh, original and beautiful today as in 1934--owes something to surrealism, but is uniquely his.

La beaute amere: Fragments d'esthetiques : Barthes, Broch, Mishima, Rousseau (L'Or d'Atalante)

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La beaute amere: Fragments d'esthetiques : Barthes, Broch, Mishima, Rousseau (L'Or d'Atalante)
Jean-Michel Rabate
Manufacturer: Diffusion, Presses universitaires de France
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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The way we never were.

Fascinating history

My Book...I think I'll keep her

Dry but thorough illustrated history of American housework

And I always *thought* I wanted to live 100 years ago...

Never Done: A History of American Housework
Susan Strasser
Manufacturer: Owl Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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"Just a Housewife": The Rise and Fall of Domesticity in America

More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave

Victorian America: Transformations in Everyday Life, 1876-1915 (The Everyday Life in America Series, Vol. 4)

The American Woman's Home

American Home Life, 1880-1930: A Social History of Spaces and Services

ASIN: 0805067744

Book Description

Finally back in print, with a new Preface by the author, this lively, authoritative, and pathbreaking study considers the history of material advances and domestic service, the "women's separate sphere," and the respective influences of advertising, home economics, and women's entry into the workforce. Never Done begins by describing the household chores of nineteenth-century America: cooking at fireplaces and on cast-iron stoves, laundry done with boilers and flatirons, endless water-hauling and fire-tending, and so on. Strasser goes on to explain and explore how industrialization transformed the nature of women's work. Easing some tasks and eliminating others, new commercial processes inexorably altered women's daily lives and relationships-with each other and with those they served.

Customer Reviews:

The way we never were........2006-10-06

I first read Never Done in 1988 as a college student studying women's history. I enjoyed it then, and I enjoyed it again this time as a re-read.

Strasser has the most rare and excellent quality of being able to condense academic research into a genuinely engaging and readable book. I find that she treats the material in an open and balanced way. She looks at the past without nostalgia, but is honest about the price that was paid for advancement. I also like that rather than focusing on the appliances themselves, she tends to focus more on the infrastructure that allowed them to be adopted as agents of change (i.e., electricity, plumbing).

I am not a historian, so I cannot say that I would recommend it for that purpose. However, I would recommend it for the student or for the general armchair type of historian who may want to supplement period reading.

Fascinating history.......2004-05-18

This book is a history of American housework, covering common household tasks, related equipment, and the people called on to do the work. The main topics of the book include food production and processing, food preparation and the evolution of cookstoves, home heating and lighting, the spread of domestic gas and electricity services, water supplies and plumbing, laundry, weaving and sewing, taking in paying boarders, maids, the scientific housekeeping movement and the birth of home economics, childcare, and consumption as an avocation. The book is amply illustrated with black and white reproductions of period paintings, drawings, and advertisements. In addition to a bibliographic note for further study, there is a section of source notes at the end of the book citing original materials, as well as an index.

In reading the acknowledgements of Ruth Schwartz Cowan's book "More Work for Mother," I had noted that Strasser was listed there as an undergraduate research assistant of Cowan's. With that in mind, I expected the thesis of this book to be similar to that of Cowan's, especially given the similar titles. However, whereas Cowan's book claimed in an almost contradictory fashion that American women have had to shoulder more and more housework over the last century due to industrialization, Strasser takes the viewpoint that industrialization gradually wore away at the value of the contribution women could add to their households by doing work around house, leading eventually to the necessity of their taking paid work outside the home. Strasser points out that in the pre-industrial period, both men and women worked the land with the goal of being as self-sufficient as possible, but that both men and women engaged in some activities to bring in outside resources or income. For example, some women earned extra income for their families or supported themselves entirely by sewing or doing laundry for others. With the advent of industrialization, these tasks were taken over by machines or factories, and while women were freed from the tasks of having to do their own sewing and laundry by hand, they could also no longer earn an income from sewing or washing clothes for others. At the same time, women became more isolated, since they had been in the habit of doing much of their work, from sewing to laundry, in the company of other women.

Whereas Cowan claimed virtually all middle class American households in the late Nineteenth Century had domestic help and that a family's housework was so heavy that it could not be undertaken by one woman working alone, Strasser points out that by studying census records, we find that the vast majority of families did not have live-in maids. In fact, enormous numbers of households included people unrelated to the family- -boarders, making the mistress of the household a kind of professional housekeeper, who undertook the cooking, cleaning and laundry not only for her family, but also for the boarders. In general, Strasser comes across as relying heavily on her research materials for her claims, while Cowan seems more driven by her political agenda.

Strasser notes that industrialization simplified many household tasks, from cooking to heating, from dress making to laundry. This enabled women to accomplish more in less time, but rather than reap the benefits of having spare time, she cites time use studies that show that following industrialization, women devoted the same amount of time to their housework, but were able and consequently expected to work towards much higher standards. As if this weren't enough, manufacturers also pushed women to fill their spare housework time by increasing their consumption activities, to take on consumption as a new household task alongside cooking, cleaning and childcare. But since virtually every source of income from women's work in the home had dried up by this point, in order to go along with the drive to consume, women needed to take jobs outside the home to supplement the family income. And that's why their work is never done.

A particularly fascinating topic was that of prepared food and its easing of the household task of cooking. Back at the turn of the Twentieth Century, several cooperative housework ventures had been proposed that sought to make the task of food preparation more efficient by having meals cooked in a central kitchen and then delivered rather than each housewife preparing food for her own family. These ventures had generally been started in academic middle and upper class communities, and most, if they got off the ground at all, failed in a year or two. But Strasser points out that the idea of making such household tasks public rather than domestic has actually come to pass, although this fact has not been generally recognized because it has taken an alternative form. Paradoxically, instead of central kitchens catching on as a cooperative housekeeping venture, the success of such kitchens has been in the capitalist world, where mothers and fathers, tired from their long work days at their cash employment, purchase their food ready to eat from fast food establishments, some of which even deliver meals to the front door, just as the early idealists had proposed.

Overall, Strasser's book is quite fascinating. Her arguments are very well supported by her extensive research. While I found certain chapters, such as those describing the history of specific household technology more engaging than others, in general the book is very well written and quite comprehensive.

My Book...I think I'll keep her .......2001-02-21

I first heard about this book when I attended Evergreen State College. The topic of housework came up as we read "Roll, Jordan Roll" by Eugene Genovese. Some of my classmates wanted to know about housework in its relationship to slavery. And the teacher, Nancy Allen, mentioned that a great book on the subject of housework was "Never Done", by Susan Strasser. Nancy also used the book as a good example of source notes that we might want to learn from in our own course work/research.

Fast forward my life ten or so years. I'm in an English class and reading "O Pioneers!" by Willa Cather. I remember Ms. Strasser's book! So I read it to broaden my understanding of Ms. Cather's novel and of pioneer and womens domestic lives at that time.

I had a romanticised view of life in America; times were simpler and therefore better. Susan's book assisted in effectively yet politely dismissing those flowery notions from my thoughts.

The research required for such a book as this--- clearly labor-intensive, but Ms. Strasser effortlessly writes in a reader-friendly style which doesn't undermine the scholarly nature of this work and its value to Womens Studies.

Dry but thorough illustrated history of American housework.......2000-11-14

A dry but thorough history of American housework from the Herculean tasks of colonial days to the consumerist present which ties in broader factors of social trends, economics, and technological advances. Through substantial research and appropriate illustrations, the book documents well the massive, though little noted revolution in the management of the American home over the last 200 years.

The author's interest in the history of American housework traces back to a 1968 undergraduate thesis later expanded to a Ph.D. thesis. She has used as sources old cookbooks, etiquette books, woman's magazines, household manuals, catalogs, and studies by government bureaus, etc. An example of her source material is the series of comprehensive 19th century manuals published over four decades, beginning in 1841, by Catharine Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe's sister, which reveal in each subsequent edition essential changes in technique and expectations. Strasser noted that although it was clear that until recently woman's role was 'in the home', it was not clear what that entailed and how it meshed with broader societal and economic trends such as technology, urban growth, new work opportunities outside the home, etc.

The book's 16 chapters each address a major housework category: food availability and obtention; cooking; providing light and heat; the gradual advent of gas and electricity; water and sanitation; washing; making and mending clothing; home income opportunities like boarding, seamstressing, laundering; use of servants; growth of systemization and the home economics movement; child care; informed consumerism; proliferating appliances; fast food; and the environment of today's working mother.

She notes the colonial household WAS colonial society, serving the functions of home, factory, school, and welfare institution, albeit via Herculean labor and hazardous living conditions, institutions that little by little were usurped by private industry and government. Women spun and wove cloth; made clothing; grew and prepared food for storage and eating; cut wood; hauled water; tended wood fires; made soap, candles, etc.; laboriously laundered clothing ('blue Monday': the worst task by far); and cared for children in their 'spare' moments. Close living and dirt producing heat sources required massive annual spring cleanings. Socially though, families were close, sitting together before the fire (only warm/light part of the house), and neighborly, assisting in chores, sewing circles, laundry day, etc.

The first big break-through product to affect housekeeping was the cast iron stove. Appearing mid-19th century, it was an enormous improvement over the open hearth. Then in the 1890-1929 period, things really began to change as labor saving appliances appeared (especially plumbing, and gas and electric heat and lighting) and households began to consume the products of American industry like prepared foods, ready-made clothes, purchased and delivered energy/fuel, commercial laundries, and finally labor-saving appliances including electric refrigerators, washers and dryers. And with these changes came massive changes in the American economy. Industries consolidated. Advertising became pervasive. Consumption and the consumer mentality ballooned. The bygone social intimacy and value was lost to 'organized' work and 'organized' leisure at an untold societal price in lost civility, family dissolution, etc. But Strasser notes that these losses must be weighed against the better nutrition, health, and female emancipation that have also resulted.

The book is an excellent if scholarly study of a massive though little considered revolution that has affected us all.

And I always *thought* I wanted to live 100 years ago..........2000-04-28

Great book. Very interesting and intriguing.

I also dreamt life 100 years ago was so much better than today. So simple, so lovely...but Strasser's book blew that theory out of the water.

If you ever wondered what a typical day was like for women and girls at the turn of the last century, you'll love this book.

Well written and extremely interesting.

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Never Done - A History Of American Housework
Susan Strasser
Manufacturer: Pantheon Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000JZZLY6

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Great book

the right approach

Very Good Oracle Architecture Reference Manual

Oracle architecture explained simply

Such a practially useful book!

Expert Oracle Database Architecture: 9i and 10g Programming Techniques and Solutions
Thomas Kyte
Manufacturer: Apress
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1590595300

Book Description

This book will help you make the best use of Oracle technology. Emulating Tom's rational methodology, and demand for proof-by-example, will make you a far better technology thinker. Without question, this is one of the most importantly Oracle books you can possess.

— Ken Jacobs, Vice President of Product Strategy (Server Technologies), Oracle Corporation

This is a defining book on the Oracle database for any developer or DBA who works with Oracle-driven database applications. Tom has a simple philosophy: you can treat Oracle as a black box and just stick data into it or you can understand how it works and exploit it as a powerful computing environment. If you choose the latter, then you will find that there are few information management problems that you cannot solve quickly and elegantly.

Expert Oracle Database Architecture is the first of a three-book series that completely explores and defines the Oracle database. It covers all of the most important Oracle architecture features, including:

Files, memory structures and processes
Locking and latching
Transactions, concurrency and multi-versioning
Tables and Indexes
Datatypes
Partitioning and parallelism

Each feature is taught in a proof-by-example manner, not only discussing what it is, but also how it works, how to implement software using it, and the common pitfalls associated with it.

This fully revised edition covers both the 9i and 10g versions. It also comes with a CD containing a searchable PDF of the 8i version of the book.

Tom has fully revised and expanded the architecture-related sections from Expert One-on-One Oracle (a searchable PDF of which is included on the CD accompanying this book), and added substantial new material. He focuses solely on 9i and 10g architecture in this book and refers to the CD for 8i-specific details. The number of changes will surprise you.

In summary, this book provides a one-stop resource containing deep wisdom on the design, development and administration of Oracle applications, written by one of the world's foremost Oracle experts, Thomas Kyte.

Customer Reviews:

Great book.......2007-09-19

This book is accurate and undoubtfully an excellent source to learn more about the Oracle Database.
Tom is an author full of humor with a versatile approach to performance. In his book he shows his approach to performance and put light on common practice like database independence and read-write consistency or like constraints enforced by triggers and autonomous transaction.
No doubt I learned a lot in this book!

the right approach.......2007-07-29

I actually helps you understand, rather than just throwing information at you (as many books do)

Very Good Oracle Architecture Reference Manual.......2007-06-11

If you work with Oracle this is a manual you need on your desk. Not just for DBA's but also for developers who will derive a good insight into how they should be developing their code.
Very technical but not to the point that brain freeze occurs.
Would highly recommend it.

Oracle architecture explained simply.......2007-05-11

This is a very good book, and I will start with what it is and what it is not:

1. It is not a manual for an Oracle administrator. For example it does not contain anything about Oracle installation, troubleshooting, backing up or restoring a database.

2. It is not a SQL or PL/SQL reference, neither it is a introduction to databases. You have to know a significant deal about databases already for the book to make effect.

3. It is not an optimization guide. You will not find execution plans and configuration parameters here.

What is it then ?

It is an extensive coverage of Oracle internals - its files, memory structures, processes, undo/redo, tables, indexes and data types. Plus it explains Oracle's approach to transactions, locking and concurrency. On top of it, a couple of chapters offer you a view to partitioning and parallel execution being another very specific tools.

The book introduces you the Oracle ultimate goal of building highly concurrent database applications and then walks you through its internal details to show how to achieve it in the applications you build.

The book strikes the right balance so as not to go deep into unnecessary bit flags and names of undocumented variables, but clearly explain the architecture of the engine. The architecture (also mentioned in the title) is the "whiteboard" kind of architecture - the one you can sketch on a whiteboard with a couple of boxes and a few arrows, which is just right in this case.

[quote]
The target audience for this book is anyone who develops applications with Oracle as the database back end. It is a book for professional Oracle developers who need to know how to get things done in the database. The practical nature of the book means that many sections should also be very interesting to the DBA.
[/quote]

The author is undoubtedly an expert, who has been working for Oracle for 15 years, with Oracle for even longer and has been consulting for God knows how many years. He also sticks to an honest, pragmatical and straightforward approach - there is not a single "enter Oracle, hold your breath" word.

[quote]
The inspiration for the material contained in this book comes from my experiences developing Oracle software, and from working with fellow Oracle developers and helping them build reliable and robust applications based on the Oracle database. The book is basically a reflection of what I do every day and of the issues I see people encountering each and every day.
[/quote]

Like the other good books out there, it just gives you something to think about. Avoiding rules of thumb,

[quote]
This is one of the main reasons why rules of thumb do not work on real-world systems: what works for you might not work for others in similar but different conditions.
[/quote]

it gives you the invaluable knowledge you could apply to your work. It is up to you to apply it afterwards.

Written very clearly, very easy to understand, nice trimmed examples, no screenshots. Highly recommended reading.

Such a practially useful book!.......2007-05-07

My company was doing a 15 million dollar national project using Oracle. There were some very complicated and intense database algorithms. We hired a famous Oracle consultancy firm. The DBA who assisted me with all the design and performance benchmarking recommended this book to me. After I had a look, I realized that most of the techniques he used came from this book! Such a practically useful book!!

It does not talk about the theories and principles of Oracle, like all other thousands of "ordinary" books do. By reading those books you know "WHAT" Oracle is, but you don't easily relate it to your own business - when you face a certain problem, what you should do? What you should avoid? While this book addresses this domain.

I found reading each page and chapter virtually fun! I am not a computer nut who have no friends and family and work before his computer 18 hours a day. Yet I have fun and smiles every now and then when reading this Oracle book! Amazing!

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