Age of Extremes Essay Example for Free

Age of Extremes Essay The twentieth century was rich in events and outstanding personalities. In his book Age of Extremes, Eric Hobsbawm provides an extensive review of what happened during the Twentieth Century and the impact of those events on human development. According to Hobsbawm, the Twentieth Century was both the Age of Catastrophe and the time of the extraordinary economic growth – a complex sandwich of events and developments that changed the human society â€Å"more profoundly than any other period of comparable brevity† (Hobsbawm, 1995). In the first two chapters of Age of Extremes, Eric Hobsbawm (1995) tries to evaluate the social and historic legacy of the Twentieth Century and creates a brief picture of the events and accomplishments that took place between 1914 and 1991. The author is confident that human society cannot distance itself from the events of the past, because everyone on the globe, irrespective of their life history and personal background, went through more or less similar central experiences that affected them all (Hobsbawm, 1995). Hobsbawm (1995) traces the evolution of the Twentieth Century from the First World War, which marked â€Å"the breakdown of the western civilization of the nineteenth century† (p. 6). The western civilization was characterized by capitalist economy, liberal constitutional structure, bourgeois image of the hegemonic class, and the glory of scientific, educational, technological, knowledge, and moral advance (Hobsbawm, 1995). The decades following the beginning of the First World War were the Age of Catastrophe: until the end of WWII, the society stumbled from one calamity to another and lived at the edge of survival (Hobsbawm, 1995). The failure of the major colonial empires and the economic crisis of unprecedented depth added their share of complexity to the state of world affairs (Hobsbawm, 1995). Hobsbawm (1995) believes that the victory of the Soviet Union over Hitler was one of the most important events of the Twentieth Century. Without it, the whole Western world could have turned into set of variations on fascist themes (Hobsbawm, 1995). The rise of the socialist movements was the direct result of the weaknesses in the nineteenth-century bourgeois society (Hobsbawm, 1995). How and why the world threw itself into the Golden Age of capitalism between 1947 and 1973 remains one of basic historical puzzles; but the Golden Age could not be endless and the global crisis that followed affected all, irrespective of their political, social, and economic configurations (Hobsbawm, 1995). The economic crisis gradually extended to cover political issues – the collapse of the Soviet Union produced an enormous zone of political uncertainty and destroyed the stable system of international relations (Hobsbawm, 1995). The economic and political uncertainties were followed by the moral and social crisis – the crisis of beliefs, which humans had used over the course of the Twentieth Century to win their battle over the nineteenth century’s ideology (Hobsbawm, 1995). The century that had begun with unbelievable optimism and faith in the future ended with a bang and a whimper, leaving the society in the midst of the moral, social, economic, and mental collapse (Hobsbawm, 1995). In Hobsbawm’s (1995) view, the Twentieth Century was the time of unprecedented achievements and dramatic failures. The cyclical nature of evolution resulted in continuous instability and profound economic, social, and political shifts. For many countries, the Twentieth Century became the time of remarkable changes and the beginning of the new era of uncertainty and chaos. Whether countries succeed in resolving the existing controversies depends on how well they can learn the lessons of the past and use wisely the historical, political, and moral legacy of the stormy Twentieth Century. Conclusion The Twentieth Century was the time of unprecedented achievements and failures. The capitalization of the word combination â€Å"Twentieth Century† by Hobsbawm (1995) is not accidental. The author feels that the Twentieth Century reflected a unique paradox: the triumph of the material values and their absolute rejection at the end of the era. The century that had begun with unbelievable optimism and faith in the future ended with the deep crisis of the moral and mental ideologies, leaving humanity in the midst of the social, economic, cultural, and moral collapse. Whether countries succeed in resolving the existing controversies depends on how well people can learn from the past and use wisely the historical, political, and moral legacy of the stormy Twentieth Century.

The Book Of Sand Essay examples -- essays research papers

Jorge Luis Borges is a famous Spanish author, known best for his short stories. In this paper, I will discuss several short stories written by Mr. Borges, what influenced him in his writings, and a brief history of his place of origin, Argentina. Borges' The Book of Sand is the story of a man who is visited by a stranger trying to sell a "holy book" called the Book of Sand. The narrator looks at the book and is unable to see the first or last pages of it because, as the stranger explains, the number of pages is infinite. The narrator is fascinated by the book and buys it, only to become obsessed with it, until the point that it is all he thinks about. He eventually gets rid of it by mixing it up in a pile of many other books in his basement. As will be discussed in this paper, Borges wrote philosophy in a lot of his works. In The Book of Sand, infinity is depicted in the form of a mysterious book. It symbolizes man's constant search for the world's existence. Borges is saying that it is an endless search and therefore pointless. The Other is the story of Borges sitting on a bench, as he feels as though he had lived that moment already. He begins to speak to the man seated besides him, and finds out the stranger has the same name, and the same address as he does. When Borges asks the man what year it is, the man answers 1918, even though it is 1969. It is then that the narrator figures out he is talking to the person whom he was fifty-one years earlier. He then tells "the other" him of the future, after which they part, knowing they will never meet like this again. This story deals with time. The author is very nostalgic and lives for his memories. It also is a philosophical story where Borges expresses his doubt that we all may "just be an image of a greater being". The Mirror and the Mask is the story of an Irish king who tells a poet to write a poem describing his power. The poet wrote a praise of his fighting success, and in reward for the excellent poem, the king gives the poet a beautiful mirror and tells him to write another poem. In reward for his next work, the king gives the poet a mask. The king then asks for a third poem and receives a one line poem of perfection and in return gives him an elaborate dagger. The poet feels it to be a sin to hear such perfection and so he stabs himself with the dagger. The king ... ...s for his interest in eternity and his desire for control of time. He admits in his poems that time moves on, the world changes, that he will grow old, and that the past is gone forever. He says that one can only rely on their memories (as he expresses in The Other). In his fifties, Borges becomes blind, but continues to lecture in colleges and conferences around the world. During his lifetime, Borges was nominated several times for the Noble Prize in Literature. He wrote alot of short stories, literary reviews (based on books that never existed), poems and more. Although he passed away on June 14, 1986, his writings live on to be shared with all generations. When Borges was born, Hipolito Yrigoyen headed the Radical Civic Union. General Roca was president at that time and he defended the middle class (which was what Borges was). Argentina had alot of trade with Britain and helped the economy to flourish. The people became more educated. As you can see, Borges' greatest influences were his childhood, familial background, and people he met while starting to write. Borges writings are enjoyable and thought provoking. I definitely recommend it to people interested in philosophy.

Pythagorean Philosophy

â€Å"Music is the harmonization of opposites, the unification of disparate things, and the conciliation of warring elements†¦ Music is the basis of agreement among things in nature and of the best government in the universe. As a rule it assumes the guise of harmony in the universe, of lawful government in a state, and of a sensible way of life in the home. It brings together and Every school student will recognize his name as the originator of that theorem which offers many cheerful facts about the square on the hypotenuse. Many European philosophers will call him the father of philosophy. Many scientists will call him he father of science. To musicians, nonetheless, Pythagoras is the father of music. According to Johnston, it was a much told story that one day the young Pythagoras was passing a blacksmith's shop and his ear was caught by the regular intervals of sounds from the anvil. When he discovered that the hammers were of different weights, it occured to him that the intervals might be related to those weights. Pythagoras was correct. Pythagorean philosophy maintained that all things are numbers. Based on the belief that numbers were the building blocks of everything, Pythagoras began linking numbers and music. Revolutionizing music, Pythagoras' findings generated theorems and standards for musical scales, relationships, instruments, and creative formation. Musical scales became defined, and taught. Instrument makers began a precision approach to device construction. Composers developed new attitudes of composition that encompassed a foundation of numeric value in addition to melody. All three approaches were based on Pythagorean philosophy. Thus, Pythagoras' relationship between numbers and music had a profound influence on future musical education, The intrinsic discovery made by Pythagoras was the potential rder to the chaos of music. Pythagoras began subdividing different intervals and pitches into distinct notes. Mathematically he divided intervals into wholes, thirds, and halves. â€Å"Four distinct musical ratios were discovered: the tone, its fourth, its fifth, and its octave. † (Johnston, 1989). From these ratios the Pythagorean scale was introduced. This scale revolutionized music. Pythagorean relationships of ratios held true for any initial pitch. This discovery, in turn, reformed musical education. â€Å"With the standardization of music, musical creativity could be recorded, taught, and reproduced. † (Rowell, 1983). Modern day finger exercises, such as the Hanons, are neither based on melody or creativity. They are simply based on the Pythagorean scale, and are executed from various initial pitches. Creating a foundation for musical representation, works became recordable. From the Pythagorean scale and simple mathematical calculations, different scales or modes were developed. The Dorian, Lydian, Locrian, and Ecclesiastical modes were all developed from the foundation of Pythagoras. † (Johnston, 1989). â€Å"The basic foundations of musical education are based on the various modes of scalar relationships. † (Ferrara, 1991). Pythagoras' discoveries created starting point for structured music. From this, diverse educational schemes were created upon basic themes. Pythagoras and his mathematics created the foundation for musical education According to Rowell, Pythagoras began his experiments demonstrating the tones of bells of different sizes. Bells of variant size produce different harmonic ratios. † (Ferrara, 1991). Analyzing the different ratios, Pythagoras began defining different musical pitches based on bell diameter, and density. â€Å"Based on Pythagorean harmonic relationships, and Pythagorean geometry, bell-makers began constructing bells with the principal itch prime tone, and hum tones consisting of a fourth, a fifth, and the octave. † (Johnston, 1989). Ironically or coincidentally, these tones were all members of the Pythagorean scale. In addition, Pythagoras initiated comparable experimentation with pipes of different lengths. Through this method of study he unearthed two astonishing inferences. When pipes of different lengths were hammered, they emitted different pitches, and when air was passed through these pipes respectively, alike results were attained. This sparked a revolution in the construction of melodic percussive instruments, as well as the wind instruments. Similarly, Pythagoras studied strings of different thickness stretched over altered lengths, and found another instance of numeric, musical correspondence. He discovered the initial length generated the strings primary tone, while dissecting the string in half yielded an octave, thirds produced a fifth, quarters produced a fourth, and fifths produced a third. â€Å"The circumstances around Pythagoras' discovery in relation to strings and their resonance is astounding, and these catalyzed the production of stringed instruments. † (Benade, 1976). In a way, music is lucky that Pythagoras' attitude to experimentation was as it was. His insight was indeed correct, and the realms of instrumentation would never be the same again. Furthermore, many composers adapted a mathematical model for music. According to Rowell, Schillinger, a famous composer, and musical teacher of Gershwin, suggested an array of procedures for deriving new scales, rhythms, and structures by applying various mathematical transformations and permutations. His approach was enormously popular, and widely respected. â€Å"The influence comes from a Pythagoreanism. Wherever this system has been successfully used, it has been by composers who were already well trained enough to distinguish the musical results. In 1804, Ludwig van Beethoven began growing deaf. He had begun composing at age seven and would compose another twenty-five years after his impairment took full effect. Creating music in a state of inaudibility, Beethoven had to rely on the relationships between pitches to produce his music. â€Å"Composers, such as Beethoven, could rely on the structured musical relationships that instructed their creativity. † (Ferrara, 1991). Without Pythagorean musical structure, Beethoven could not have created many of his astounding compositions, and would have failed to establish himself as one of the two greatest musicians of all ime. Speaking of the greatest musicians of all time, perhaps another name comes to mind, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. â€Å"Mozart is clearly the greatest musician who ever lived. † (Ferrara, 1991). Mozart composed within the arena of his own mind. When he spoke to musicians in his orchestra, he spoke in relationship terms of thirds, fourths and fifths, and many others. Within deep analysis of Mozart's music, musical scholars have discovered distinct similarities within his composition technique. According to Rowell, initially within a Mozart composition, Mozart introduces a primary melodic theme. He then reproduces hat melody in a different pitch using mathematical transposition. After this, a second melodic theme is created. Returning to the initial theme, Mozart spirals the melody through a number of pitch changes, and returns the listener to the original pitch that began their journey. â€Å"Mozart's comprehension of mathematics and melody is inequitable to other composers. This is clearly evident in one of his most famous works, his symphony number forty in G-minor† (Ferrara, 1991). Without the structure of musical relationship these aforementioned musicians could not have achieved their musical aspirations. Pythagorean theories created the basis for their musical endeavours. Mathematical music would not have been produced without these theories. Without audibility, consequently, music has no value, unless the relationship between written and performed music is so clearly defined, that it achieves a new sense of mental audibility to the Pythagorean skilled listener.. As clearly stated above, Pythagoras' correlation between music and numbers influenced musical members in every aspect of musical creation. His conceptualization and experimentation molded modern musical practices, instruments, and music itself nto what it is today. What Pathagoras found so wonderful was that his elegant, abstract train of thought produced something that people everywhere already knew to be aesthetically pleasing. Ultimately music is how our brains intrepret the arithmetic, or the sounds, or the nerve impulses and how our interpretation matches what the performers, instrument makers, and composers thought they were doing during their respective creation. Pythagoras simply mathematized a foundation for these occurances. â€Å"He had discovered a connection between arithmetic and aesthetics, between the natural world and the human soul.

Summary Of Journals Reviewing Tax Impacts Finance Essay - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 3 Words: 943 Downloads: 10 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Finance Essay Type Cause and effect essay Did you like this example? The journal provides a review about the impact of taxes on corporate financial behavior, focusing on the tax dimension of corporate finance. The decision of the firm to issue debt is based upon the risk-adjusted rate of return on debt between the common stock and municipal bonds. The demand for corporate debt curve is derived from the differential tax rates for individual investors. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Summary Of Journals Reviewing Tax Impacts Finance Essay" essay for you Create order The greater the demand for corporate debt, the higher is the pretax interest rate. In Section 2, the author addressed the relationship between taxes and capital structure, focusing on the generalization of the Miller equilibrium. The Miller equilibrium assumes that firms will be indifferent toward in issuing debt whenever interest that is paid at the premium rate can reduce the level of corporate taxable income dollar. The marginal value of tax savings associated with debt financing is the parameter in managing capital structure. It involves both corporate and personal taxation of bond and common stock income. Section 3 is a review on the impact of taxes on dividend policy. Stocks with relatively high degrees of tax exposure sell so as to yield relatively high pre-tax expected rates of return in regards of dividends-tax effects. The section also focused on the possible role of tax avoidance by investors such as transforming dividends into a tax-deferred annuity and tax arbitrag e strategy. The author also discussed the attempt to reconcile the apparent conflict between the conditions of the original Miller equilibrium, where firms are indifferent to capital structure, and the conditions under which costless tax avoidance leads to an indifference by investors to dividends and capital gains. John R. Graham (2003). Taxes and Corporate Finance: A Review. The Review of Financial Studies Winter. Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 1075Acirc; ±1129. The journal reviews about tax research related to areas like domestic and multinational capital structure, the payout and compensation policy, risk management, and last but not least earnings management. Under the domestic and multinational capital structure section, it reviews how corporate debt usage is positively affected by tax rates. For multinational capital structure, it is how international tax law can affect corporate financing decisions in a multinational firm. Under the payout policy section, the focus is on the ta x incentives related to corporate payout policy. The compensation policy section highlights the choice of salary versus equity compensation, the choice between incentive stock options (ISOs) and nonqualified stock options (NQOs), and also, the trade-off between compensation deductions and debt tax shields. Risk management section on the other hand investigates imperfections in the tax code that can lead to corporate hedging being beneficial and also explore how similar imperfections can provide an incentive to manage earnings. The last section, earnings management reviews the conditions that can lead to a tax incentive to smooth earnings. For each of these areas, the paper reviewed how taxes can affect corporate decision making and firm value and thus followed by a summary and discussion of the related empirical evidence and unresolved issues. Kerry Pattenden (2006). Capital Structure Decisions Under Classical and Imputation Tax Systems: A Natural Test for Tax Effects in Australi a. Australian Journal of Management, Vol. 31, No. 1, pp. 67Acirc; ±92. The journal investigates determinants of capital structure, which are mainly focus on tax incentives for debt financing. The reason for this examination is that, marginal tax rates play a deciding factor in the debt equity decision under a tax regime which favors debt over equity due to the potential size of the interest tax shield available. The hypothesis is that there should have a positive coefficient in the tax variable included. The analysis uses an experimental design and statistical technique which is the Bayesian selection methods to address key problems that might arise during empirical capital structure research. The paper also examines a panel of Australian firms that operated under two tax regimes which are classical regime and dividend imputation regime. The result shows that there is a significant positive tax coefficient in the classical regime, as hypothesized. Tax Effect on Malaysian companies and their capital structure decisions. (Mat Kila and Wan Mahmood, 2008) investigates the determinants of capital structure for the companies listed in the Bursa Malaysia Securities Berhad (BMSB) during the period from 2000 to 2005. The data are derived from financial statements of 17 companies by the DATASTREAM database. The authors analyzed dependent variable of debt ratio and the independent variables which are size, growth, liquidity and interest coverage ratio. To estimate the characteristics that will affect capital structure of Malaysian firms, they applied pooled OLS estimations. The result shows that the independent variables which included the size, liquidity and interest coverage ratio are significantly negative related to total debt. This may prove that larger firm employ equity financing or using itacirc;â‚ ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s retained earnings as a major source in its capital structure. However, the study also shows insignificant negative capital structure to growth of the firm, which is expressed by the annual ch anges of earnings. The statistic shows of about 89.20% out of 17 sampled Malaysian firms for 6 year period use less than 30% debt in financing their activities. Meanwhile, the remaining firms which are 10.80% firms use more than 30% debt. In addition to that, 13 out of 17 sampled Malaysian firms are completely maintaining the usage of debt financing less than 30% for 6 year period of 2000 to 2005. Whereas only 4 companies, namely White Horse, Abric, Minply Holdings and Permaju Industries, are for a few years during the 6 years period of study use more than 30% debt ratio in financing its activities. Therefore, the result implies that most of Malaysian companies prefer to safeguard their control of their company by financing its operations with more equities compared to the usage of debt that exposed them to the fixed obligations toward creditors.