The Preference For The Primitive

Professor Gombrich's last book and first narrative work in over 20 years.

Professor Gombrich's last book and first narrative work in over 20 years.

In this acclaimed book, Torgovnick explores the obsessions, fears, and longings that have produced Western views of the primitive. Crossing an extraordinary range of fields (anthropology, psychology, literature, art, and popular culture),Gone Primitivewill engage not just specialists but anyone who has ever worn Native American jewelry, thrilled to Indiana Jones, or considered buying an African mask. "A superb book; and--in a way that goes beyond what being good as a book usually implies--it is a kind of gift to its own culture, a guide to the perplexed. It is lucid, usually fair, laced with a certain feminist mockery and animated by some surprising sympathies."--Arthur C. Danto, New York Times Book Review "An impassioned exploration of the deep waters beneath Western primitivism. . . . Torgovnick's readings are deliberately, rewardingly provocative."--Scott L. Malcomson,Voice Literary Supplement

Economists and psychologists have, on the whole, exhibited sharply different perspectives on the elicitation of preferences. Economists, who have made preference the central primitive in their thinking about human behavior, have for the most part rejected elicitation and have instead sought to infer preferences from observations of choice behavior. Psychologists, who have tended to think of preference as a context-determined subjective construct, have embraced elicitation as their dominant approach to measurement. This volume, based on a symposium organized by Daniel McFadden at the University of California at Berkeley, provides a provocative and constructive engagement between economists and psychologists on the elicitation of preferences.

The most famous and popular book on art ever published, this quintessential "introduction to art," now in its sixteenth edition, has been a worldwide bestseller for over four decades.

Primitive Meteorites and Asteroids: Physical, Chemical, and Spectroscopic Observations Paving the Way to Exploration covers the physical, chemical and spectroscopic aspects of asteroids, providing important data and research on carbonaceous chondrites and primitive meteorites. This information is crucial to the success of missions to parent bodies, thus contributing to an understanding of the early solar system. The book offers an interdisciplinary perspective relevant to many fields of planetary science, as well as cosmochemistry, planetary astronomy, astrobiology, geology and space engineering. Including contributions from planetary and missions scientists worldwide, the book collects the fundamental knowledge and cutting-edge research on carbonaceous chondrites and their parent bodies into one accessible resource, thus contributing to the future of space exploration. Presents the most current data and information on the mission-relevant characteristics of primitive asteroids Addresses the physical, chemical and spectral characteristics of carbonaceous chondritic meteorites and the bearings on successful exploration of their parent asteroids Includes chapters on geotechnical properties and resource extraction

"This text explores mankind's origins, as considered and examined in light of nature, with particular emphasis on the following parts and assertions: I. That according to the light of nature and natural reason, the visible world was not eternal, but had a beginning; II. That if there could be any imaginable doubt thereof, yet by the necessary evidence of natural light it does appear that mankind had a beginning, and that the successive generations of men were in their original form; III. That this truth is evident by demonstrative reason and arguments; IV. That there are moral evidences of the truth of this assertion, which are herein particularly expanded and examined; V. That those great philosophers that asserted this origination of mankind, both ancient and modern, that rendered it by hypothesis different from that of Moses, were mistaken--here the hypotheses of Aristotle, Plato, and others are examined, and the absurdity and impossibility of their theories are detected; VI. That the current author's theory explaining the creation of man and of the world, in general, abstractly considered without relation to the divine inspiration of the writer, is according to reason, and preferable to the sentiments of other philosophers; and VII. That the author has concluded the whole of this work with certain corollaries and deductions, necessarily flowing from the things thus asserted, as well touching the existence, the wisdom, power, and providence of Almighty God, as touching both the duty and happiness of mankind"--Foreword. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved).