Duel at Dawn

Duel at Dawn PDF Author: Amir Alexander
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674061748
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
In the fog of a Paris dawn in 1832, ƒvariste Galois, the 20-year-old founder of modern algebra, was shot and killed in a duel. That gunshot, suggests Amir Alexander, marked the end of one era in mathematics and the beginning of another. Arguing that not even the purest mathematics can be separated from its cultural background, Alexander shows how popular stories about mathematicians are really morality tales about their craft as it relates to the world. In the eighteenth century, Alexander says, mathematicians were idealized as child-like, eternally curious, and uniquely suited to reveal the hidden harmonies of the world. But in the nineteenth century, brilliant mathematicians like Galois became Romantic heroes like poets, artists, and musicians. The ideal mathematician was now an alienated loner, driven to despondency by an uncomprehending world. A field that had been focused on the natural world now sought to create its own reality. Higher mathematics became a world unto itselfÑpure and governed solely by the laws of reason. In this strikingly original book that takes us from Paris to St. Petersburg, Norway to Transylvania, Alexander introduces us to national heroes and outcasts, innocents, swindlers, and martyrsÐall uncommonly gifted creators of modern mathematics.

Duel at Dawn

Duel at Dawn PDF Author: Amir Alexander
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674061748
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Get Book

Book Description
In the fog of a Paris dawn in 1832, ƒvariste Galois, the 20-year-old founder of modern algebra, was shot and killed in a duel. That gunshot, suggests Amir Alexander, marked the end of one era in mathematics and the beginning of another. Arguing that not even the purest mathematics can be separated from its cultural background, Alexander shows how popular stories about mathematicians are really morality tales about their craft as it relates to the world. In the eighteenth century, Alexander says, mathematicians were idealized as child-like, eternally curious, and uniquely suited to reveal the hidden harmonies of the world. But in the nineteenth century, brilliant mathematicians like Galois became Romantic heroes like poets, artists, and musicians. The ideal mathematician was now an alienated loner, driven to despondency by an uncomprehending world. A field that had been focused on the natural world now sought to create its own reality. Higher mathematics became a world unto itselfÑpure and governed solely by the laws of reason. In this strikingly original book that takes us from Paris to St. Petersburg, Norway to Transylvania, Alexander introduces us to national heroes and outcasts, innocents, swindlers, and martyrsÐall uncommonly gifted creators of modern mathematics.

Pistols at Dawn

Pistols at Dawn PDF Author: Richard Hopton
Publisher: Piatkus Books
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 474

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Book Description
Duelling is embedded in our collective consciousness, through numerous films and books. This book traces the history of the duel from its medieval antecedents in trial by combat and chivalric tournaments. Using numerous accounts of actual duels, it shows how the arcane rules of the duel evolved.

Pistols at Dawn

Pistols at Dawn PDF Author: John Norris
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 075249659X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description
In modern society the thought that someone would organise a deadly competition with a rival, risking his life over a point of honour, is incomprehensible. That this form of resolution would become an accepted 'sport', with noble gentlemen even possessing sets of special duelling pistols, is insane. This fascinating history of the practice of duelling takes the reader into the intriguing world of pistols, 'fields of honour' and mortal combat, a world where complex rules governed a system of dispute which often ended in death. With tales of tragic loss, ridiculous quarrels and often hilarious combat, John Norris takes the reader on a journey of discovery through some of the most dramatic disputes of history.

Gentlemen's Blood

Gentlemen's Blood PDF Author: Barbara Holland
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1596918098
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
"Never, never, did I imagine that dueling could be so enthralling, outrageous, gruesome, tragic, and, yes, ridiculous...Lively humor and sparkling prose." -Wall Street Journal The medieval justice of trial by combat evolved into the private duel by sword and pistol, with thousands of honorable men-and not-so-honorable women-giving lives and limbs to wipe out an insult or prove a point. The duel was essential to private, public, and political life, and those who followed the elaborate codes of procedure were seldom prosecuted and rarely convicted-for, in fact, they were obeying a grand old tradition. Based on her fascinating 1997 Smithsonian article, Barbara Holland's Gentlemen's Blood is the first trade book to trace the remarkable, often gruesome, sometimes comical history of the Western tradition of defending one's honor.

Touché

Touché PDF Author: John Leigh
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674504380
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
Many of the West’s best writers fought in duels or wrote about them, seduced by glamour or risk or recklessness. A gift as a plot device, the duel also offered a way to discover how we face fears of humiliation, pain, and death. John Leigh’s literary history of the duel illuminates these and other tensions attending the birth of the modern world.

The Duelling Handbook, 1829

The Duelling Handbook, 1829 PDF Author: Joseph Hamilton
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486147940
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
This 1829 manual offered advice on everything from withdrawal of challenges to weapons. Dramatic anecdotes recount duels arising from disagreements over religion, women, gambling, and other volatile subjects.

Duels and Duelling

Duels and Duelling PDF Author: Stephen Banks
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0747812616
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 101

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Book Description
A duel could result from any challenge to a gentleman's honour, from minor insult to major accusation. At a prearranged time, two men at odds would meet, armed either with swords or pistols, to engage in a formal and sometimes fatal exchange. Gentlemen considered it their prerogative to fight, despite the illegality of duelling, and figures as prominent as the Duke of Wellington and Georges Clemenceau defended their honour in this way. Why did participants flout the law, what codes were followed, what were the changing roles of the seconds, and what were the consequences for victims and victors? Stephen Banks answers these questions and examines the evolution from Norman trials-by-combat to the formalised duel, analysing the custom's decline in England by Victorian times and its final disppearance from Europe by the twentieth century.

Duel at Dawn

Duel at Dawn PDF Author: Kevin Berry
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781981120284
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
It's 1626 in Paris, France. In the latest You Say Which Way you can choose to be a recruit in the King's Musketeers or the Cardinal's Guards. Now, with one of your friends, you're about to enter this new life, close at hand to the king or the cardinal. There's conspiracy, political intrigue, dueling and more. Will you risk going to the Courtyard of Miracles? What is the cardinal's secret? Is the king ill because he's being poisoned? Where's the best place to buy bandages for sword wounds? Will you make trouble, or will it find you? It's never far away. Oh ... and watch out for thieves, secrets and the compte de Bouteville!

The Code of Honor

The Code of Honor PDF Author: John Lyde Wilson
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3732658392
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 42

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Book Description
Reproduction of the original: The Code of Honor by John Lyde Wilson

Founding Brothers

Founding Brothers PDF Author: Joseph J. Ellis
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0375705244
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A landmark work of history explores how a group of greatly gifted but deeply flawed individuals—Hamilton, Burr, Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Adams, and Madison—confronted the overwhelming challenges before them to set the course for our nation. “A splendid book—humane, learned, written with flair and radiant with a calm intelligence and wit.” —The New York Times Book Review The United States was more a fragile hope than a reality in 1790. During the decade that followed, the Founding Fathers—re-examined here as Founding Brothers—combined the ideals of the Declaration of Independence with the content of the Constitution to create the practical workings of our government. Through an analysis of six fascinating episodes—Hamilton and Burr’s deadly duel, Washington’s precedent-setting Farewell Address, Adams’ administration and political partnership with his wife, the debate about where to place the capital, Franklin’s attempt to force Congress to confront the issue of slavery and Madison’s attempts to block him, and Jefferson and Adams’ famous correspondence—Founding Brothers brings to life the vital issues and personalities from the most important decade in our nation’s history.