Private Pension Policies in Industrialized Countries: A Comparative Analysis

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In today's rapidly-chaging financial environment, in which the rules change virtually every day, you need clear, step-by-step applications that show you how to approach financial management now! The Treasurer's Handbook of Financial Management provides you with clear, concise descriptions of key treasury management issues, detailed yet understandable, and has become the most celebrated and indispensable reference for treasury managers worldwide. Turn to The Handbook for knowledeable, complete definitions and explanations of: the capital markets, capital market relations, capital structure and dividend policy; mergers and acquisitions, and how you can keep minor pitfalls from killing potentially lucrative deals; dynamic theories and practices behind financial planning and valuation framework; best practices for managing and financing inventories for optimum benefit to your firm; discussions of the latest findings on risk management, employee pension funding and benefit management.

Corporate Treasury and Cash Management (Finance and Capital Markets)

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Corporate Treasury and Cash Management (Finance and Capital Markets)
Robert Cooper
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1403916233

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The book is an analysis of corporate treasury and cash management with the principal financial instruments used by the corporate treasurer. The objectives of the book are to describe how corporate treasury departments should establish a framework for the identity, measurement and management of risk and to describe how corporations should manage and control the operation of their treasury function. Robert Cooper brings his extensive experience as Corporate Treasurer of a large multinational to bear in this comprehensive work.

International Cash Management (Treasury Management & Finance)

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International Cash Management (Treasury Management & Finance)
Lex van der Wielen , Willem van Alphen , and Joost Bergen
Manufacturer: Riskmatrix
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Essentials of Managing Corporate Cash

ASIN: 9080232386
Release Date: 2006-12-04

Product Description

Modern cash management is no longer restricted to the management of business cash flows and account balances. Nowadays, a cash manager is the treasurer s right-hand man, who, in addition to these core tasks, also bears responsibility for the management of interest and foreign exchange risks and for some of the company s corporate finance operations. In addition, he plays an important supporting role towards the working capital management of the company. This book provides an overview of the position and duties of the modern cash manager in an international company. In addition, it deals with the most important instruments used in contemporary cash management. It covers a cash manager s regular duties, such as the daily management of account balances and the conclusion of transactions in the financial markets. Examples are presented of several types of cash flow forecasts and an overview is provided of all relevant financial products. Furthermore, extensive attention is devoted to the establishment of a proper cash management infrastructure for the company. This includes setting up an (international) account structure, cash pools (international or otherwise), payment and collection factories and a netting system. Finally, a description is provided of the cash manager s role as a company adviser in relation to the management of its working capital. This book is primarily intended for (future) professionals in the corporate treasury and banking sectors, who wish to gain practical knowledge about the subject. It is also suitable for students who need to obtain a broad general overview of cash management as part of their business economics and administration studies.

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Corporate Treasury and Cash Management (Finance and Capital Markets)
Robert Cooper
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MUILK4

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Corporate treasury manual
Leslie N Masonson
Manufacturer: A.S. Pratt & Sons
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: B0006R2N1G

A definition of role and function corporate treasury management

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A definition of role and function corporate treasury management
Mark Anthony Kadlec
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0006OXK5W

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Excellent compendium for research or pleasure.......2004-12-05

This book was an invaluable source of information for my research on tribal sovereignty. Wildenthal focuses on 5 topics: The Cherokee Cases, Indian Treaty Rights, Tribal Criminal Jurisdiction, Tribal Civil Jurisdiction, and Tribal Gambling. Each topic has an introduction section, a historical background section, and a description of the cases and the many issues.

Each topic is also subdivided into its seminal Supreme Court cases such as Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, Oliphant v. Sququamish, and Worcester v. Georgia. The second part of the book compiles various documents that deal with the majority of these cases; two treaties, one gaming compact, and 13 opinions.

There is also a chronology, a glossary of people, laws, and concepts, and a table of cases and statutes. Throughout the book are sections on "reccommended reading" and an extensive annotated bibliography that provide new ideas and books for further research.

Wildenthal writes in an engaging manner, asking questions and raising issues. The style of the book encourages learning; he gives background, then describes the case, then tells you to read the opinion or relevant document, and then discusses the issues.

This is an awesome book!

An A-Z list of crucial individuals, laws, and ideas.......2003-07-15

The latest in the "On Trial" series from ABC-CLIO, Native American Sovereignty On Trial examines the history of court litigation and important legal controversies involving Native American treaty rights, especially concerning the historical background and modern-day implications of Native American sovereignty. Painstakingly compiled by Bryan H. Wildenthal (Associate Professor and Director of the Center for Law and Social Justice at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law, San Diego, California), Native American Sovereignty On Trial presents primary source documents such as court decisions and rulings, as well as an A-Z list of crucial individuals, laws, and ideas, a chronology. All this and more fill the pages of this informed and informative casebook which is especially commended for inclusion with Native American Studies reading lists and American Jurisprudence Studies reference collections.

Must reading for better understanding of American history.......2003-06-20

This first book by Brian H. Wildenthal instantly positions him as a law-thinker who has disturbing new perspectives to offer about how law drives American history. The subject of how callously and exploitively U.S. law -- and often the Supreme Court as well -- has treated our native American peoples is a long-neglected one. So is the subject of how vastly different from that of blacks and other racial groups is the legal treatment of our U.S. tribes, because they started off dealing with the U.S. government as sovereign nations. U.S. law has often had the effect of attempted genocide on the tribes, not only in the past but right up to today, whether it's the festering old treaty issues or the continuing policy of removing Indian children from tribal homes and putting them up for adoption with non-Indian families. Technically a textbook, "Native American Sovereignty on Trial" is highly readable and accessible to the layperson. It gives a vivid picture of the long sad history of issues and court decisions -- from the Cherokee removals and the broken treaties of old, to controversies around criminal jurisdiction and tribal gaming today. As an American of mixed-blood descent, with relatives who are enrolled tribal members, I felt my blood boil as I read this book, and hope "Native American Sovereignty" gets the wide visibility that it deserves. Wildenthal has been teaching at the Thomas Jefferson College of Law in San Diego for years, with a major focus on this subject. I look forward to Wildenthal's next book.

Book Description

This is the first detailed study of the ecological impact of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion on 26 April, 1986 - the largest civil nuclear catastrophe of all time. Geneticist Vladimir Savchenko details the effects of high level radionuclide release on the environment, on natural ecosystems, and on agroecosystems; the human effects then and now; the impact of radionuclide release on biological diversity and genetic systems; and the socioeconomic effects of the Chernobyl catastrophe. He also describes the Chernobyl Ecological Sciences Network, a multinational information network dealing with the large-scale, multidimensional effects of human technology out of control. The book has a bibliography, an index, and a glossary of units, ratios, and acronyms.

Book Description

In this book Carver Mead offers a radically new approach to the standard problems of electromagnetic theory. Motivated by the belief that the goal of scientific research should be the simplification and unification of knowledge, he describes a new way of doing electrodynamics--collective electrodynamics--that does not rely on Maxwell's equations, but rather uses the quantum nature of matter as its sole basis. Collective electrodynamics is a way of looking at how electrons interact, based on experiments that tell us about the electrons directly. (As Mead points out, Maxwell had no access to these experiments.)

The results Mead derives for standard electromagnetic problems are identical to those found in any text. Collective electrodynamics reveals, however, that quantities that we usually think of as being very different are, in fact, the same--that electromagnetic phenomena are simple and direct manifestations of quantum phenomena. Mead views his approach as a first step toward reformulating quantum concepts in a clear and comprehensible manner.

The book is divided into five sections: magnetic interaction of steady currents, propagating waves, electromagnetic energy, radiation in free space, and electromagnetic interaction of atoms. In an engaging preface, Mead tells how his approach to electromagnetic theory was inspired by his interaction with Richard Feynman.

Customer Reviews:

"Not even wrong".......2006-07-23

This is an unusual book and not an easy one to review.
Perhaps the best starting place is the publisher's summary:

[BEGIN PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY (from the book's back cover)]

"In this book Carver Mead offers a radically new approach to the standard problems of electromagnetic theory. Motivated by the belief that the goal of scientific research should be the simplification and unification of knowledge, he describes a new way of doing electrodynamics---collective electrodynamics---that does not rely on Maxwell's equations, but rather uses the quantum nature of matter as its sole basis. Collective electrodynamics is a way of looking at how electrons interact, based on experiments that tell us about the electron directly. (As Mead points out, Maxwell had no access to these experiments.)"

"The results Mead derives for standard electromagnetic problems are identical to those found in any text. Collective electrodynamics reveals, however,that quantities that we usually think of as being very different are, in fact, the same---that electromagnetic phenomena are direct manifestations of quantum phenomena. Mead views this as a first step toward reformulating quantum concepts in a clear and comprehensive manner.''

[END PUBLISHER's SUMMARY]

It was this summary that persuaded me to order, sight unseen, this small (132 pages) but relatively inexpensive book to read on vacation. I didn't expect a lot from it, but I hoped that it might furnish some new insights. I was very disappointed that I learned nothing of substance from it.

Indeed, I think that the above summary borders on false advertising. The book does not convincingly obtain classical electrodynamics from accepted quantum mechanical principles nor from experiments to which "Maxwell had no access". Its motivation is presented in such a vague and sloppy way that I regard it as yet one more of the endless accumulation of dreary papers which Pauli, in a famous remark, characterized as "not even wrong", i.e., too vague to be meaningful.

The book only sketchily describes the "experiments that tell us about the electron directly". These are experiments with superconducting coils, which reveal not the behavior of individual electrons, but behavior of a system of a large number of electrons coupled in poorly understood ways (hence the collective" in the book's title). Most of the book's development is based on just one experimental fact---that the magnetic flux of a superconducting loop is quantized, i.e., the flux can take on only values which are a constant multiple of integers. The book views such a system as a primitive system "having only one degree of freedom".

Before proceeding to sketch the book's main argument, I have to make some mathematical remarks. It is well known that classical electrodynamics can be plausibly developed starting with just one mathematical object---the four-potential A, which is a 1-form on four-dimensional Minkowski space. The electromagnetic field tensor F, a 2-form, is the differential of the potential 1-form: F = dA. It would be too difficult to give precise definitions here, but they can be found in my book *Relativistic Electrodynamics and Differential Geometry* and many other places. The 4-current J is then defined as (or, from a more physical point of view, assumed to be) the codifferential (covariant divergence) of the field tensor. This mathematical structure is equivalent to Maxwell's equations.

In summary, from any physical situation in which a 1-form
on Minkowski space appears naturally, one can plausibly recover much of the mathematical structure of classical electrodynamics. For example, if within the logical structure of thermodynamics there were a naturally occurring 1-form on Minkowski space, one might claim to "derive" electrodynamics from thermodynamics by identifying this "natural" thermodynamic 1-form with the electromagnetic potential A.

The only problem would be if the thermodynamic definition of A were somehow in physical conflict with the electrodynamic definition. But if A should be an unmeasurable quantity within thermodynamics, then this problem would not exist.

The essence of Mead's argument is that within quantum mechanics, there is a naturally occurring 1-form on three-dimensional space with the property that integrating it over a superconducting loop gives the phase change of the "wave function" of the loop, which must be a constant multiple of an integer. Also, integrating the space part of the four-potential 1-form A over a loop gives the magnetic flux threading the loop, which for a superconducting loop is observed to be a constant multiple of an integer. This suggests identifying the "phase change" 1-form with a constant multiple of the space part of A.
Later the full A is recovered by hand-waving analogies. In my opinion, the main problem with his argument is that his construction of the "phase change" 1-form is so vague, sloppy, and problematic that it is "not even wrong".

Another difficulty is that the electrodynamic potential 1-form
has special properties which may or may not be possessed by Mead's "phase change" 1-form, a point which Mead does not address. Since there seems no way to experimentally determine Mead's "phase change" 1-form independently of electromagnetic measurements, his identification of the "phase change" 1-form
with a constant multiple of the electrodynamic 1-form seems physically sterile.

I cannot point out the precise difficulties with his construction without using symbols which are unavailable here.
A more extensive review on my website gives the mathematical details of some of the problems with it.

Is there anything of interest in the book?
Well, some may find of interest an 11-page "Personal Preface" describing, among other things, the author's relationship with and impressions of Richard Feynman. Mead was an undergraduate student of Feynman and later his colleague at Caltech.

I have mixed feelings about these.
His reminiscences sound sincere, but also seem to me to have a
flavor of name-dropping. For example, he discusses a "sticking point" in his development of electrodynamics which held him up for years, and informs us that "it is resolved in this treatment in a way that Feynman would have liked". It seems presumptuous to claim to know what a great, deceased physicist would have thought about this work.

Coherent, Concise, and Challenging.......2005-06-30

For those of us who were fascinated by Feynman's presentation of the vector potential field A, this book is irresistable. Mead tries to build the foundations of electricity and magnetism anew, and does a fascinating job of it.

There is a lot of history and historiography mixed in with this short book, but I myself find that fascinating. If you're interested in how the currents of thought might have eddied, or where key suggestions were missed, or what from Einstein may have been underappreciated, you'll enjoy this side of the book.

All that said, this book is chewy, and does only a mild amount of hand-holding in walking through the math. This is NOT anybody's first book of mathematical physics - but if you have enjoyed reading books by (e.g.) Feynmann, Misner/Thorne/Wheeler, Herb Kroemer, Andy Grove, Morse/Feshbach, Francon, Ichimaru, Khinchin, Papoulis, Polya, Sapriel, or Wiener, you're part of the natural audience for this book. If you liked "The Elegant Universe" you may love this book (and find some common themes), but this book is more mathematically demanding. On the other hand this is no mere tome, and does not require more than undergraduate competence.

I would have liked to see more visualization aids - some of the concepts in this formulation lend themselves very well to a visual presentation. I'm going to be rereading this book, and I'm really looking forward to expository textbooks which may follow this line of presentation.

If you're in doubt, buy this - it's challenging, but very broad and brilliant, and is not only about electrodynamics.

Successor to Feyman's Red Books.......2004-07-06

From time to time I ask people if there's been anything better than Feyman's "Lectures in Physics," and the answer is generally no, that's about all there is...

Seems to me this beautiful book is at least the start of the current generation's canonical physics text set.

Pioneering Research.......2003-06-27

Carver Meade is a Pioneer. Like Einstein, he recognized that Maxwell's Equations (ME) are not correct because they are based on the assumption that the electron is a point particle. This myth was handed down from the Greek Democritus. Like Milo Wolff before him, Meade deduces that the electron is quantum wave structure, as proposed by Schroedinger. Wolff's book is also sold here at Amazon.com.
Meade uses the properties of a wave structure to provide new equations for the analysis of electronic engineering ciruits - very useful in the design of micro chips. He also shows how the collective behavior of waves is the cause of low-temperature behavior.

Collective Electrodynamics--Carver Mead's book.......2002-12-05

Despite his preface upbraiding physicists for their work of the past 50-75 years, the main text makes reasonable claims based upon well-founded experimental and theoretical results. The book endorses earlier work of Einstein, Feynmann, Reimann, Lorentz, Maxwell, Planck, and others while making computational and conceptual adjustments to accommodate modern experimental results.

Also in the text, Bohr and other die-hard quantum statisticians are continually under attack for their poo-pooing of possible phenomena, algorithms, and concepts behind the observed quantum behavior. Bohr and his clan, apparently, claimed that the statistics made up the whole baseball team of quantum physics--and that we should not, and could not, look further.

In refuting this micro-labotomic approach of Bohr, Dr. Mead makes reference to systems--macroscopic in size--that exhibit quantum behaviors. While he mentions lasers, masers, semiconductors, superconductors, and other systems in the text, the primary results of the book hinge upon experimental results from the field of superconductors. He points out that physics can be split into several areas:

Classical Mechanics explains un-coherent, uncharged systems such as cannon balls, planets, vehicles, etc.
Classical Electrodynamics explains un-coherent, charged systems such as conductors, currents, and their fields.
Thermodynamics explains how macroscopic statistics, such as temperature and entropy, guide the time evolution of systems.
Modern Quantum Mechanics tries to explain coherent, charged systems.

Here 'coherent' refers to quantum coherency, where many particles/atoms march to the same drum such as the photons in a laser, or the electrons in a superconductor, or any isolated one or two particles. Another description of coherency is that the states are quantum entangled; their time-evolution depends upon each other.

The thrust of Carver's book: QM applies to all matter--not just small systems or isolated particles--is well made. He brings up experimental data from superconductors to illustrate that the phenomenon of coherent quantum entanglement can, and does, occur at macroscopic scales; and that such behavior is very quantum. Thus he proves, quite convincingly, that quantum mechanics applies to all coherent systems.

He then closes by making some very important points. (1) He shows that quantum behavior of such systems can be expressed in quantum language (wave function), relativistic language (four-vectors), or electrodynamics (vector potential, scalar potential) in an equivalent fashion. This is important, as it proves that a superconductor is macroscopic, exhibits quantum behavior, and that these quantitative results agree with those found from the other approaches. (2) He makes the point that the quantum and relativistic equations show that electromagnetic phenomena consist of two parts: one traveling forward in time; the other backward in time. Feynmann and others have said this for a long time, and he shows how thermodynamics (or un-coherent behavior) forces what we see as only time-evolution in one direction in un-coherent systems. (3) He illustrates, modeling single atoms as tiny superconducting resonators, that two atoms that are coherently linked will start exchanging energy. This causes an exponential, positive-feedback loop that ends with each atom in a quantum eigenstate. Thus quantum collapse is neither discontinuous, nor instantaneous; and in fact makes a lot of sense. (4) He explains, using four-vectors, that all points on a light-cone are near each other in four space. This point--together with (2)--shows that there's no causality contradiction between relativity and quantum mechanics. For example, he explains that two entangled particles, such as photons light years apart, can affect each other immediately if one falls into an eigenstate, since the four-dimensional distance between them (R1 dot R2) is zero. Although separated in three space, they're neighbors in four space. Through these demonstrations and proofs, he successfully suggests that there is a way to further develop the 'behavior of charged, coherent systems' such that quantum mechanics and relativity will agree--but the conceptual changes he suggests are necessary and must be further developed. Also, he admits that a better, more appropriate mathematical and computational methods will be needed, since the complexity of coherent systems runs as n^2.

Pleasantly, then, the book makes elegant, defensible, mathematical and conceptual steps to resolve some nagging points of understanding. Also, the narrative gives the best introduction to electrodynamics and quantum mechanics that I've ever seen. Since the theoretical criticisms and experimental data are quite valid, his proposed resolutions are eye-opening and valuable. The methods he suggests greatly simply thinking about complicated quantum/classical problems. New approaches for future theoretical research are also suggested. Despite the dark tone in the preface, the book is positive, enlightening, and well anchored to accepted, modern experimental results and theoretical work.

It's a short book, about 125 pages, and well worth the read. Familiarity with classical and quantum physics, and special relativity, is required to get the most out of it. As you can tell, I enjoyed it tremendously.

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Collective Electrodynamics - Quantum Foundations of Electromagnetism
CA Mead
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OQZACS

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Collective Electrodynamics: Quantum Foundations of Electromagnetism
Carver A. Mead
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OQGMDE

Book Description

In 1999, the University of Chicago Press published a collection of Mike Royko's columns, entitled One More Time: The Best of Mike Royko. The response was immediate and overwhelming—readers almost instantly began asking when the second volume of Royko columns would appear. With more than a hundred vintage Royko columns and a foreword by Roger Ebert, For the Love of Mike was the answer.

Customer Reviews:

Good, but not the best Royko collection.......2006-04-13

For those of us that enjoyed the daily newspaper column by Mike Royko (1932-1997) from 1963-1997, there were many favorites. This edition is a second collection of Royko columns published after he died (the first was ONE MORE TIME). Royko was witty, hard-hitting, self-deprecating, irreverent, serious, sympathetic and funny - often in the same column. He took on crooked politicians, stuffed shirts, and arrogance in high places, reserving soft spots for minorities, little people, stressed-out workers, drinkers, and anybody getting a raw deal. This collection of columns falls short of those in its predecessor, but there are still lots of laughs and serious writing here.

Better than the first one.......2002-01-11

I liked this book better than the first volume but don't really know why. I found myself wishing for more follow-ups. ie. What happened to the lady who had to go to court to prove she wasn't a mother?

Not as good as the first installment.......2001-11-14

This follow-up to "One More Time" includes more of Mike Royko's Tribune and Sun-Times columns. Although there were a few gems that had been missing from "One More Time", most of the installments here fall flat. If "One More Time" whet your apetite, it would be better to find a copy of "Boss" and see Royko at his best.

Another great Royko collection.......2001-06-11

This book is for those of us who love Mike Royko. It is a sequal to the superb "One More Time," collection that came out last year. This time the introduction is written by former collegue Roger Ebert, who delivers an appropriately poinaint snapshot of the man. Then Royko's own words take over. As always, he is at his best when deflating puffed up politicians or defending the little guy against big corporations and big government. This book adds a bonus of also including the verbal sparring that Royko would occasionally do with readers who outraged by a particular column. It also singles out individual Royko sayings for easilly quotable repeating. Royko was a true Chicago original and perhaps the best newspaper columnist of all time. Reading this book is another reminder of how the void of his absence has yet to be filled and perhaps never will be.

More Great Articles from Mike Royko.......2001-05-25

If you enjoyed reading Mike Royko's articles in newspapers or his previous book entitled "One More Time" you will enjoy this latest offering of more of his past articles. He covers a variety of subjects ranging from his beloved Chicago Cubs to politics and civil rights in his usual sarcastic manner. Neither book, however, has had my favorite article entitled "Real Fans Endure Phonies". The book is a good read and one I intend to keep for my library.

One More Time: The Best of Mike Royko.(For the Love of Mike: More of the Best of Mike Royko)(Book review): An article from: Argumentation and Advocacy

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One More Time: The Best of Mike Royko.(For the Love of Mike: More of the Best of Mike Royko)(Book review): An article from: Argumentation and Advocacy
Craig A. Dudczak
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Argumentation and Advocacy, published by Thomson Gale on September 22, 2005. The length of the article is 759 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: One More Time: The Best of Mike Royko.(For the Love of Mike: More of the Best of Mike Royko)(Book review)
Author: Craig A. Dudczak
Publication: Argumentation and Advocacy (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 22, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 42 Issue: 2 Page: 121(3)

Article Type: Book review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

For the Love of Mike: More of the Best of Mike Royko

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For the Love of Mike: More of the Best of Mike Royko
Mike Royko
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OPY9D0

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