A Culture of Ambiguity: An Alternative History of Islam

In the Western imagination, Islamic cultures are dominated by dogmatic religious norms that permit no nuance. Those fighting such stereotypes have countered with a portrait of Islam's medieval "Golden Age," marked by rationality, tolerance, and even proto-secularism. How can we understand Islamic history, culture, and thought beyond this dichotomy? In this magisterial cultural and intellectual history, Thomas Bauer reconsiders classical and modern Islam by tracing differing attitudes toward ambiguity. Over a span of many centuries, he explores the tension between one strand that aspires to annihilate all uncertainties and establish absolute, uncontestable truths and another, competing tendency that looks for ways to live with ambiguity and accept complexity. Bauer ranges across cultural and linguistic ambiguities, considering premodern Islamic textual and cultural forms from law to Quranic exegesis to literary genres alongside attitudes toward religious minorities and foreigners. He emphasizes the relative absence of conflict between religious and secular discourses in classical Islamic culture, which stands in striking contrast to both present-day fundamentalism and much of European history. Bauer shows how Islam's encounter with the modern West and its demand for certainty helped bring about both Islamicist and secular liberal ideologies that in their own ways rejected ambiguity--and therefore also their own cultural traditions. Awarded the prestigious Leibniz Prize, A Culture of Ambiguity not only reframes a vast range of Islamic history but also offers an interdisciplinary model for investigating the tolerance of ambiguity across cultures and eras.

History

Bauer, Thomas

World

Columbia University Press

'The Year Book of Oncology' brings you abstracts of articles that reported breakthrough developments in oncology, selected from more than 500 journals worldwide. Expert commentaries evaluate the clinical importance of each article and discuss its application to practice.

Year Book of Oncology 2010 (Volume 2010) (Year Books, Volume 2010)

Medical Books

Medicine

Mosby

Tourism in the Antarctic

Ecotourism and adventure tours offer unique tourism opportunities in the Antarctic! Are you prepared to make the most of them?Tourism in the Antarctic analyzes tourism activities in the most remote tourist destination in the world! It establishes visitor profiles; discusses the impacts of tourism on the region; and explores barriers, opportunities, and future directions in Antarctic tourism. The emergence of ecotourism has turned Antarctica into an increasingly popular tourist destination for intrepid travelers. During the 1999/2000 season, approximately 15,000 passengers visited Antarctica by ship. Tourism in the Antarctic discusses the new and exciting opportunities for tourism business operators in the region, as well as the ramifications of increased numbers of visitors to this unique environment.In these pages, you will find discussions of issues related to Antarctic tourism including: 
<ul>
<li>regulation of the tourism industry under the Antarctic Treaty System, and self-regulation provided by business operators </li>
<li>trends and predictions for numbers of visitors to the region </li>
<li>tourist attractions that are natural, man-made, spiritual, or scientific in nature </li>
<li>wildlife of Antarctica: seals and whales, flying sea birds, penguins, etc. </li>
<li>international law as it relates to the region </li>
<li>ship-based tourism opportunities from yachts and small expedition-type vessels to very large cruise ships and icebreakers </li>
<li>air- and land-based tourism opportunities in the region from private expeditions to overflights </li>
<li>an overview of current tourism operations in other remote areas: the Arctic region, the Galapagos Islands, Alaska, New Zealand's Sub-Antarctic Islands, and more</li>
</ul>The author's observations and experiences during cruises to the Antarctic Peninsula, the sub-Antarctic islands and the Ross Sea, as well as during overflights of Antarctica, are the basis of this unique volume. Generously embellished with charts and tables that make it easy to track activities, opinions, trends, and environmental statistics, this book is an essential reference for anyone teaching, studying, or planning to operate a tourism business in this part of the world.

Tourism in the Antarctic: Opportunities, Constraints, and Future Prospects

Business & Money

Industries

Routledge

Sex and Tourism

Explore the complex relationship between tourism and intimacy in this new book with a worldwide perspective! With a unique combination of academic and personal accounts, Sex and Tourism: Journeys of Romance, Love, and Lust takes you behind the scenes with motel owners, adventure travel guides, backpackers, and others working on all sides of the international tourism industry. The editors have created a model that views the situation from three different perspectives: tourist, tourism provider, and nature of the encounter. Unlike other related volumes, this book is not just about the sex trade, but also about the role of tourism in love, marriage, and relationships. The global focus of Sex and Tourism will introduce you to: 
<ul>
<li> off-season romance on the island of Crete </li>
<li> sex tourism in Cambodia </li>
<li> a South Korean museum dedicated to women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military </li>
<li> the sexual aspects of adventure travel in Canada </li>
<li> cross-cultural marriage in Thailand </li>
<li> gentleman's clubs in New Orleans </li>
<li> Australian river guides and their potential liaisons with clients</li>
</ul> People who travel to escape their day-to-day lives often become involved in situations they would never find themselves in at home. Good or bad, many of these situations are examined in Sex and Tourism. You'll learn about the illegal trafficking of girls in Nepal, worldwide programs for combating child sex rings, and the lethal combination of AIDS and tourism, but you'll also find accounts of love and romance far from home. You will see how the tourism industry can act as a facilitator of human intimacy and what happens when different cultural realities collide. Anyone involved in recreation, leisure, anthropology, social science, or tourism will be interested in this book. Sex and Tourism is an enlightening guide to the complex world found at the crossroads of sightseeing and sex.

Sex and Tourism: Journeys of Romance, Love, and Lust

McKercher, Bob

Chon, Kaye Sung

Reference

The Seventh Circle

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

BookBaby

Drive marketing ROI with an investor's mindset and a proven toolkit Top marketers today don't shy away from financial accountability. In fact, they actively seek to account for the return on their companies' investments in marketing – because they want their budget to make a difference for their brands and for their business: more relevant messages, more effective campaigns, more satisfied customers, more profitable promotions, higher returns to shareholders. If this is how you think about marketing, this book is for you. It is a book for CMOs who adopt an investor's mindset, and it deals with the most pressing marketing performance questions. 
This isn't a work of theory. This is a hands-on guide to better marketing for top managers, neatly packaged into ten concise chapters that are just right for a short-haul flight. 
Learn how to: 
<ul>
<li>Increase sales with smarter fund allocation</li> <li>Reduce marketing costs without sacrificing effectiveness</li> <li>Strengthen the role of marketing with quantified ROI</li> <li>Build capabilities for sustainable performance improvements</li> </ul>
Marketing Performance delivers expert insight, a wealth of proven success factors, and real-life case studies that will help you drive marketing performance and grow your business.

Marketing Performance: How Marketers Drive Profitable Growth

Perrey, Jesko

Spillecke, Dennis

Gordon, Jonathan

Freundt, Tjark

Management & Leadership

wiley

Warum es kein islamisches Mittelalter gab: Das Erbe der Antike und der Orient

Beck C. H.

Straßenbrücken in Massivbauweise nach Eurocode 2: Beispiele prüffähiger Standsicherheitsnachweise Stahlbeton- und Spannbetonüberbauten

Müller, Michael

Hensel, Thomas

Lubinski, Stefan

Beuth Verlag

Warum dick nicht doof macht und Genmais nicht tötet: Über Risiken und Nebenwirkungen der Unstatistik

Arts & Photography

Gigerenzer, Gerd

Krämer, Walter

Performing Arts

Goldmann Verlag

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Books by Bauer, Thomas