Archibald R. Lewis, in Speculum (Oct. 1990), Medieval Acad. of America, 1430 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, Mass. 02138.
When did today's split between the Islamic world and the West occur? During the
14th and 15th centuries, said the late Uni- versity of Massachusetts historian Lewis. The attitudes "that these two great world civilizations formed" then toward each other "still govern much of how they inter- act today." the mid-14th century, while Western Europe was falling on hard...
John S. Rigden and Sheila
Tobias, in The Sciences (Jan.-Feb. 1991), New York Academy of Sciences, 2 E.63rd St., New York, N.Y. 10021.
Every year nearly 500,000 students gradu- ate from high school and go on to college with the intention of majoring in science or engineering. But every year only 200,000 college students complete one of those majors. After taking introductory sci- ence courses, most of the students initially oriented toward science change their minds. Meanwhile, of the undergraduates w...
John S. Rigden and Sheila
Tobias, in The Sciences (Jan.-Feb. 1991), New York Academy of Sciences, 2 E.63rd St., New York, N.Y. 10021.
Every year nearly 500,000 students gradu- ate from high school and go on to college with the intention of majoring in science or engineering. But every year only 200,000 college students complete one of those majors. After taking introductory sci- ence courses, most of the students initially oriented toward science change their minds. Meanwhile, of the undergraduates...
pointing with his gloved hand.
Variations on virtual-reality technology already have been used to help physicians position beams of radiation for cancer therapy and to aid biochemists seeking to attach drugs to protein molecules. But vir- tual-reality researchers have more exalted goals in mind. One scientist told Wheeler that the technology's main aim should be to take people to "absolutely unreal" places. He envisions, for instance, people acting as variables in mathematical equa- tions...
railroad expansion and the development of portable, steam-powered grain thresh- ers. "The destruction of the native prairie grasses enabled the thistle to exploit an ecological niche," Young notes.
Farmers themselves also helped the wind witch to spread. They often unwit- tingly sowed Russian thistle seeds along with their crop seeds, and grain shipments railroad were contaminated. "In addi- tion," Young writes, "the same steam threshermen who so disliked the spiny weed...
Rick Henderson, in Reason (Apr. 1991), Reason Foundation, 2716 Ocean Park Blvd., Ste. 1062, Santa Monica, Calif. 90405.
When the Carter administration set out in 1977 to combat destruction of U.S. wet- lands, there was not much question about
' what lands were to be protected. Wetlands were areas so often flooded or saturated with ground water that they would nor- mally support "vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil condi- tions." Only "aquatic areasu-swamps, marshes,...
Gregory Hayes, in Hu-The Mozart Myth manities (Mar.-Apr. 1991), National Endowment for the Hu-
rnanities, 1100 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C.
In the Oscar-winning 1984 film Amadeus, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1 756-9 1) was made out to be a silly genius, in dramatic contrast to his rival Antonio Salieri, a pi- ous mediocrity. The portrayal, writes Hayes, a pianist and harpsichordist, was only the latest variant of the mythic Mo- zart, a popular creation that has overshad- owed the man...
Robert Kenner, in ~rt& An-tiques (Mar. 1991), Art & Antiques Associates, 89 Fifth Ave., New York, N.Y. 10003.
Dutch painter Piet Mondrian's abstract ar- rangements of right angles and primary colors can be seen on everything from bedsheets to bathroom tiles. But Mondrian (1 872-1 944) himself remains a somewhat mysterious figure. Art historians have por- trayed him as having made an orderly ar- tistic progression from landscape painter to grid maker, but to tidily portray him thus, says...
Scholar (Spring 1991), 1811 Q St. N.W., Washington, D.C.
20009.
The financier was one of the large figures of the 19th-century novel. In his savage sat- ire, The Way We Live Now (1874-75), for example, Anthony Trollope tells of the sud- den rise of financial speculator Augustus
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Melmotte, a "hollow vulgar fraud" whom a corrupt society chooses to venerate, and of his fall after being unmasked at the height of his success. Today, observes Princeton historian James,...
picted," James says. In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gats(1925), bond traders fre- quently appear-but "we never under-stand what they do or how they do it."
The main reason for the decline of the financier novel, however, lies elsewhere. "The classic format was concerned with change and with the decline of an old standard of behavior," James says. "The fi-nancier becomes a scourge to punish the greed and immorality of an old elite that can no longer remain...