world literature
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Ramdas answers the questions, "How to approach womens' rights in other countries, without seeming an activist?"; "What are the universalities of human rights?" GFW has found that women in their respective countries are extremely good judges of what issues are most important, what risks are involved, and the best ways to address these problems without creating direct confrontation or conflict. They often fund groups of women, rather than in...more
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If the people who set the prices are the same people who set the production levels, then it's not really a market, and true supply and demand are a farce. David Rothkopf, author of Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They are Making, says that Europe is leading the planet in green energy technology thanks to government subsidies, including biofuels and wind energy. Rothkopf is optimistic that the US will eventually adopt these...more
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In this lecture, Professor Kagan describes the growth of a new power: Thebes. Under the leadership of Epaminondas and Pelopidas, Thebes grows into a major power among the Greek cities. In fact, the Thebans even rout the Spartans in a standard hoplite battle in the battle of Leuctra. Finally, Professor Kagan points out that by the time of Theban hegemony, the Greek world had experienced so many wars and conflicts that it opened the door to ...more
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For decades after the end of World War II the question of French collaboration with the Nazis was obscured. One of the reasons for this was the desire of de Gaulle and others to downplay the central role of communists in resisting the occupation. In fact, many French civilians were involved to greater or lesser degrees in informing upon their fellows or otherwise furthering the interests of the German invaders. Under the Vichy regime, righ...more
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If the extent of French collaboration during World War II has been obscured, so too has the nature of resistance. Although the communist Left represented the core of the resistance movement, resistors came from any different backgrounds, including in their ranks Catholics, Protestants, Jews and socialists. Unlike the relationship between de-Christianization and right-wing politics, in the case of the resistance there is no clear correlatio...more
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Don Francis, a pioneer in the field of HIV/AIDS research, had a long history as a pediatrician and an employee of the CDC before he joined Genentech to develop an AIDS vaccine. He realized that the only way to truly combat AIDS was to develop a vaccine. He chose Genentech because it was the world leader on vaccines at that time, but he became disappointed when the development was not going anywhere and decided to start his own company....more
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The visual system has developed to allow us to navigate in a complex and dangerous world in order to find food and to avoid danger. This survival system works by building a complex three-dimensional model based on two-dimensional data from the retina. This model is tested against "reality" and checked with information from other senses and updated if needed. The brain suppresses the complexity of this processing and we believe that visi...more
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France's colonial territories were of very high importance after the embarrassment of occupation during World War II. Algeria, in particular, was a complicated case because it involved large numbers of French settlers, the pieds-noirs. Despite international support for Algerian independence, right-wing factions in the military and among the colonizers remained committed to staying the course. After Charles de Gaulle presided over French wi...more
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Thompson states that a company must never stop spending, even in challenging times. As Symantec entered the challenging 2001, the problem was about the cost of owning and operating the security infrastructure that customers had deployed around the world, he says. Customers had no way to measure the effectiveness of the technology they deployed so Symantec spent 15-16% of revenues to build a portofolio of tools that are now the model for ho...more
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In addition to dollars, Google.org harnesses the company's engineering talent to try to make the world fairer, more just, and safer, says the corporate non-profit's Executive Director Larry Brilliant. The company made a decision to dedicate one percent of its profits to global causes. It took 18 months to find that unique short list of problems that Google could uniquely solve, at the right scale, with sustainable results. Brilliant also e...more
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France's colonial properties were thought of in the latter half of the nineteenth century as consolation for the bitter loss of Alsace and Lorraine to Germany. As civilian administrators came to replace military personnel in the colonies, and as more and more French settlers arrived, empire and colonialism came to play an important function in France's cultural self-presentation. World War I heralded the eventual decline of the French empi...more
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According to Komisar, the nature of the work in Kleiner Perkins is very hands on. He meets with companies every week to build their strategies, partnerships and relationships. For this reason, it is no surprise that many companies from around the world move their management teams to Silicon Valley to build the business; the ecosystem in the area is very reinforcing. On the other hand, this is also why it is difficult for a venture capitali...more
