Product Description: This story is based on the myths and legends of the early Maya people. The animal characters in the book represent the mythic figures in the Mayan story of creation. It is the story of The First Living Thing helping mankind come into being...read more

To say that history's greatest economic experiment--Soviet communism--was also its greatest economic failure is to say what many consider obvious. Here, in a startling reinterpretation, Robert Allen argues that the USSR was one of the most successful developing economies of the twentieth century. He reaches this provocative conclusion by recalculating national consumption and using economic, demographic, and computer simulation models to address the "what if" questions central to Soviet history. Moreover, by comparing Soviet performance not only with advanced but with less developed countries, he provides a meaningful context for its evaluation. Although the Russian economy began to develop in the late nineteenth century based on wheat exports, modern economic growth proved elusive. But growth was rapid from 1928 to the 1970s--due to successful Five Year Plans. Notwithstanding the horrors of Stalinism, the building of heavy industry accelerated growth during the 1930s and raised living standards, especially for the many peasants who moved to cities. A sudden drop in fertility due to the education of women and their employment outside the home also facilitated growth. While highlighting the previously underemphasized achievements of Soviet planning, Farm to Factory also shows, through methodical analysis set in fluid prose, that Stalin's worst excesses--such as the bloody collectivization of agriculture--did little to spur growth. Economic development stagnated after 1970, as vital resources were diverted to the military and as a Soviet leadership lacking in original thought pursued wasteful investments.

This unique atlas of the human brain correlates studies of post mortem tissue with the in situ, cross-sectional brain and MRIs of the same brain in situ with in vivo images from normal volunteers. This atlas contains a series of maps, each featuring different aspects of brain morphology and topography. The atlas is divided into two sections: the Topographic and Topometric Atlas and the Myeloarchitectonic Atlas. The Topographic and Topometric atlas presents the surface anatomy of the brain over a topometric grid, together with corresponding in situ sections of the entire head, placed on stereotaxic grids in order to emphasize the brain. The part of the atlas is further divided into three sections: the Horizontal, the Coronal, and the Sagittal. The Myeloarchitectonic atlas presents 69 myelin-stained sections cut perpendicular to the intercommissural line depicting mainly subcortical structures. Each plate has corresponding schematic diagrams defining position, extent, and relationship of nuclei and pathways of the forebrain and mesencephalon. Key Features ofTopographic and Topometric Atlas:* Sections are cut at regular, 1-cm thick intervals in all planes of section* Both sides of section are shown* Includes corresponding X-rays and MRIs of the same head and an in vivo MRI from a healthy volunteerKey Features of Myeloarchitectonic Atlas:* The most comprehensive delineations available; suitable for mapping of neurotransmitters, neuropeptides, and receptors* Sections are from a reference brain used by preeminent neuroanatomists: Vogts, Brockhaus, Hassler, Wahren, Hopf, and Sanides* Includes 4 pages of 36 reduced figures showing gyrification and subcortical detail

Product Description: A nickelodeon screening a Charlie Chaplin silent classic, the downtown arthouse cinemas that made Antonioni and Cassavetes household names, the modern suburban megaplex and its sold-out Friday night blockbuster: how American and global audiences have viewed movies is as rich a part of cinematic history as what we’ve seen on the silver screen...read more

Product Description: When did Europe pull ahead of Asia in terms of living standards? A number of well-known scholars compare economic and demographic indicators of well-being in the pre-industrial period. The emerging picture is not one of great differences, but of considerable similarities in standard of living between Europe and Asia before the Industrial Revolution...read more

Product Description: In his memoir Creating Hawai'i Tourism Robert C. Allen, a leader in the tourism-related ground transportation, airline, hotel, and cruise industries describes the events and people that transformed Hawai'i from a small resort into a world-class tourist mecca...read more

Examining commercial television in the light of contemporary culture, literary and cinematic criticism, this book addresses the place of semiotics, narrative theory, reception theory, ideological analysis, psychoanalysis, and others in the critical analysis of television.

A critical history of American burlesque traces its social, demographic, and cultural changes

Product Description: From "Ma Perkins" and "One Man's Family" in the 1930s to "All My Children" in the 1980s, the soap opera has capture the imagination of millions of American men and women of all ages. In Speaking of Soap Operas, Robert Allen undertakes a reexamination of the production and consumption of soap operas through the use of a unique investigatory model based on contemporary poetics and reader-response theory...read more