Writing Laws in Antiquity. Edited by Dominique Jaillard and Christophe Nihan. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte, vol. 19. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2017. Pp. 170. €58.

The Mahāvairocana sūtra was translated into Chinese by the Indian monk Śubhakarasiṃha 善無畏 (637–735) and the Chinese monk Yixing 一行 (683–727), and Yixing also composed an elaborate commentary based on the teachings of Śubhakarasiṃha. Their efforts to introduce to China this key source for esoteric Buddhist doctrine and ritual offer us a remarkable case study of Buddhological translation. The two translators respond with particular flair to the perennial challenge of translating any Buddhist scriptures, namely, how to deal with foreign terms (...) or phrases that might appear untranslatable. Looking at both the translation and commentary, we can observe how the two translators employed multiple strategies and frequently relied on commentary to clarify the multiple layers of meaning embedded in the source text. In particular, the polysemous Sanskrit word kalpa highlights the ingenuity of the two translators, as their interpretation of this term differs considerably from that implied in the Tibetan translation. Some of their specific choices in the translation had a substantial impact on the future of esoteric Buddhism in East Asia. (shrink)

Transmitting Authority: Wang Tong and the Zhongshuo in Medieval China’s Manuscript Culture. By Ding Xiang Warner. Sinica Leidensia, vol. 113. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Pp. 225 + xii. €103, $134.

Current workflows in academic ecology rarely allow an engagement of ecologists with philosophers, or with contemporary philosophical work. We argue that this is a missed opportunity for enriching ecological reasoning and practice, because many questions in ecology overlap with philosophical questions and with current topics in contemporary philosophy of science. One obstacle to a closer connection and collaboration between the fields is the limited awareness of scientists, including ecologists, of current philosophical questions, developments and ideas. In this article, we aim (...) to overcome this obstacle and trigger more collaborations between ecologists and philosophers. First, we provide an overview of philosophical research relevant to ecologists. Second, we use examples to demonstrate that many ecological questions have a philosophical dimension and point to related philosophical work. We elaborate on one example – the debate around the appropriate level of complexity of ecological models – to show in more detail how philosophy can enrich ecology. Finally, we provide suggestions for how to initiate collaborative projects involving both ecologists and philosophers. (shrink)

When Washington Shut Down Wall Street unfolds like a mystery story. It traces Treasury Secretary William Gibbs McAdoo's triumph over a monetary crisis at the outbreak of World War I that threatened the United States with financial disaster. The biggest gold outflow in a generation imperiled America's ability to repay its debts abroad. Fear that the United States would abandon the gold standard sent the dollar plummeting on world markets. Without a central bank in the summer of 1914, (...) the United States resembled a headless financial giant. William McAdoo stepped in with courageous action, we read in Silber's gripping account. He shut the New York Stock Exchange for more than four months to prevent Europeans from selling their American securities and demanding gold in return. He smothered the country with emergency currency to prevent a replay of the bank runs that swept America in 1907. And he launched the United States as a world monetary power by honoring America's commitment to the gold standard. His actions provide a blueprint for crisis control that merits attention today. McAdoo's recipe emphasizes an exit strategy that allows policymakers to throttle a crisis while minimizing collateral damage. When Washington Shut Down Wall Street recreates the drama of America's battle for financial credibility. McAdoo's accomplishments place him alongside Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan as great American financial leaders. McAdoo, in fact, nursed the Federal Reserve into existence as the 1914 crisis waned and served as the first chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. (shrink)

A lively and accessible history of Modernism, _The First Moderns_ is filled with portraits of genius, and intellectual breakthroughs, that richly evoke the _fin-de-siècle_ atmosphere of Paris, Vienna, St. Louis, and St. Petersburg. William Everdell offers readers an invigorating look at the unfolding of an age. "This exceptionally wide-ranging history is chock-a-block with anecdotes, factoids, odd juxtapositions, and useful insights. Most impressive.... For anyone interested in learning about late 19th- and early 20th- century imaginative thought, this engagingly written book (...) is a good place to start."—_Washington Post Book World_ "_The First Moderns_ brilliantly maps the beginning of a path at whose end loom as many diasporas as there are men."—Frederic Morton, _The Los Angeles Times Book Review_ "In this truly exciting study of the origins of modernist thought, poet and teacher Everdell roams freely across disciplinary lines.... A brilliant book that will prove useful to scholars and generalists for years to come; enthusiastically recommended."—_Library Journal_, starred review "Everdell has performed a rare service for his readers. Dispelling much of the current nonsense about 'postmodernism,' this book belongs on the very short list of profound works of cultural analysis."—_Booklist_ "Innovative and impressive... [Everdell] has written a marvelous, erudite, and readable study."-Mark Bevir, _Spectator_ "A richly eclectic history of the dawn of a new era in painting, music, literature, mathematics, physics, genetics, neuroscience, psychiatry and philosophy."—Margaret Wertheim, _New Scientist_ "[Everdell] has himself recombined the parts of our era's intellectual history in new and startling ways, shedding light for which the reader of _The First Moderns_ will be eternally grateful."—Hugh Kenner, _The New York Times Book Review_ "Everdell shows how the idea of "modernity" arose before the First World War by telling the stories of heroes such as T. S. Eliot, Max Planck, and Georges Serault with such a lively eye for detail, irony, and ambiance that you feel as if you're reliving those miraculous years."—Jon Spayde, _Utne Reader_. (shrink)

As readers of Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics undoubtedly know, edited books can be highly uneven in their quality, with some chapters excelling in content, depth, and readability while others languish in mediocrity. Volumes in an annually issued series run an even greater risk of suffering the plague of inferiority, especially after many years of fame and success. End-of-Life Ethics: A Case Study Approach clearly overcomes these maladies and provides readers with an excellent collection of well-written, thought-provoking essays.The Hospice Foundation of (...) America launched its annual bereavement teleconference two decades ago, publishing a book each year to accompany that educational event. Dubbed the “Living with Grief” series, every volume includes chapters written by a diversity of clinicians and scholars in the care of the dying and bereaved. The series has been unique in its approach to bridge scholarly understandings with practical clinical application.This volume takes a unique .. (shrink)

Five years have elapsed since the publication of No Free Lunch. In that time, intelligent design (ID) has gone from a little-known and marginalized alternative to standard evolutionary theory to a national and international phenomenon that everyone with an interest in the biological origins debate is talking about. Gone is the former dichotomy between creationism and evolution. Leaving aside creationism’s insistence on treating Genesis as a scientific text and treating the detection and application of design as a research tool for (...) science, ID has carved out its own conceptual space and place at the table of scientific discussion. Five years ago critics of ID regularly leveled the charge that ID has no peer-reviewed publications in the biological literature. That charge is no longer supportable, with pro-ID research appearing in such journals as Protein Science, Journal of Molecular Biology, and Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington (for details, see my expert witness report for the Dover case at www.designinference.com). (shrink)