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Béla Bartók wrote the first four volumes of the Mikrokosmos as a series of beginning piano exercises for his son Péter. The great Hungarian composer's complete six-volume collection represents one of the most comprehensive anthologies of contemporary technique ever assembled. This edition, consisting of the first two volumes, presents more than 100 pieces of study material suitable for first- and second-year students. In a 1945 radio interview, Bartók explained, "The Mikrokosmos is a cycle of 153 pieces for piano, written with a didactic purpose. That is, to give piano pieces which can be used from the very beginning and then going on. It is graded according to difficulties. And the word Mikrokosmos may be interpreted as a series of pieces in many different styles, representing a small world. Or it may be interpreted as 'world of the little ones, the children.'" This volume constitutes the definitive edition of Bartók's tutorials, drawing upon all known manuscripts and the printed originals for a corrected version approved by the composer's son and the first student to benefit from these exercises.

This classic guide offers clear, concise instruction in the basics as well as the finer points of pencil drawing. Appropriate for beginning and intermediate students, it features sixty-six well-chosen illustrations that encompass a wide range of subjects — mainly architectural, but also people, animals, and landscapes — and demonstrate a tremendous variety of techniques. An architect, painter, art director, and teacher, Arthur L. Guptill wrote several popular books on drawing. He begins this two-part treatment, aimed at architects, artists, and students, with discussions of drawing objects in outline and in light and shade, the principles of freehand perspective, methods of cast and life drawing, and sketching animals. The second part examines the choice of subjects and drawing in outline and in flat and graded tones. The important subject of composition receives considerable attention, with particular focus on unity and balance. Additional topics include working from photographs and from nature, the representation of buildings — including exteriors, interiors, and street scenes — and portraying details and accessories, from furniture, draperies, doors, and windows to clouds, water, and trees.

In this wide-ranging collection of entertaining and thought-provoking essays, Isaac Morehouse shares his original, liberty-minded take on infomercials, Aristotelian ethics, squirrels, and why inflation is like an energy drink. There is, however, a central theme that runs through the whole collection and loosely ties the essays together. That theme is simple: freedom is better than force. Morehouse takes you on the journey of his own transition - from asking what works for society in the abstract to seeking what works for you as an individual. How can you become more free?

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Hard-Boiled Egg Index is a true story on the struggles Kudzai Gumunyu and most Zimbabweans went through during the record- and heart-breaking hyper-inflationary period in Zimbabwe. Though saddening, the story is told in a humorous and vivid way detailing how Kudzai had to adjust to the effects of economic meltdown. Zimbabwe's inflation rate reached a mind-boggling 89.7 sextillion percent by 2008 and US$1 was worth 3 nonillion Zimbabwean dollars had the Central Bank not debased the currency three times with twenty-five zeros. The ZWD100 trillion became the highest denomination on the planet. Before the crazily denominated notes, money was being carried in wheelbarrows and grain bags and the purchased item in your hand due to rapid loss of value. Every day became a struggle from shortages of foodstuffs, collapse of services, bank queues, as well a salary that could not keep up with inflation. The writer also gives the life and economic lessons learned, which can be useful to other countries navigating similar economic minefields. It ends with a positive outlook for the country and the hope that the Jewel of Africa (Zimbabwe) will sparkle again given its educated and competent human capital, abundant and rich mineral fields, tourist attractions, rich agricultural lands aided by a favorable climate, as well as, recently, a change of leadership.

Ethereum represents the gateway to a worldwide, decentralized computing paradigm. This platform enables you to run decentralized applications (DApps) and smart contracts that have no central points of failure or control, integrate with a payment network, and operate on an open blockchain. With this practical guide, Andreas M. Antonopoulos and Gavin Wood provide everything you need to know about building smart contracts and DApps on Ethereum and other virtual-machine blockchains. Discover why IBM, Microsoft, NASDAQ, and hundreds of other organizations are experimenting with Ethereum. This essential guide shows you how to develop the skills necessary to be an innovator in this growing and exciting new industry. * Run an Ethereum client, create and transmit basic transactions, and program smart contracts * Learn the essentials of public key cryptography, hashes, and digital signatures * Understand how "wallets" hold digital keys that control funds and smart contracts * Interact with Ethereum clients programmatically using JavaScript libraries and Remote Procedure Call interfaces * Learn security best practices, design patterns, and anti-patterns with real-world examples * Create tokens that represent assets, shares, votes, or access control rights * Build decentralized applications using multiple peer-to-peer (P2P) components

2021 Hardcover Reprint of the 1949 Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. "Human Action: A Treatise on Economics" is the first comprehensive treatise on economics written by a leading member of the modern Austrian school of economics. Von Mises' contribution was very simple, yet at the same time extremely profound: he pointed out that the whole economy is the result of what individuals do. Individuals act, choose, cooperate, compete, and trade with one another. In this way Mises explained how complex market phenomena develop. Mises did not simply describe economic phenomena - prices, wages, interest rates, money, monopoly and even the trade cycle - he explained them as the outcomes of countless conscious, purposeful actions, choices, and preferences of individuals, each of whom was trying as best as he or she could under the circumstances to attain various wants and ends and to avoid undesired consequences. Hence the title Mises chose for his economic treatise, "Human Action."

MP3 CD Format Peopled by larger-than-life heroes and villains, charged with towering questions of good and evil, Atlas Shrugged is Ayn Rand's magnum opus: a philosophical revolution told in the form of an action thriller--nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read. Atlas Shrugged is the "second most influential book for Americans today" after the Bible, according to a joint survey of five thousand people conducted by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club in 1991. In a scrap heap within an abandoned factory, the greatest invention in history lies dormant and unused. By what fatal error of judgment has its value gone unrecognized, its brilliant inventor punished rather than rewarded for his efforts? This is the story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world--and did. In defense of those greatest of human qualities that have made civilization possible, he sets out to show what would happen to the world if all the heroes of innovation and industry went on strike. Is he a destroyer or a liberator? Why does he have to fight his battle not against his enemies but against those who need him most? Why does he fight his hardest battle against the woman he loves? The answers will be revealed once you discover the reason behind the baffling events that wreak havoc on the lives of the amazing men and women in this remarkable book. Tremendous in scope and breathtaking in its suspense, Atlas Shrugged is Ayn Rand's magnum opus, which launched an ideology and a movement. With the publication of this work in 1957, Rand gained an instant following and became a phenomenon. Atlas Shrugged emerged as a premier moral apologia for capitalism, a defense that had an electrifying effect on millions of readers (and now listeners) who had never heard capitalism defended in other than technical terms.

America has been regarded as a grand experiment in self-government. While the Greeks and Romans had failed to achieve this in their day, both societies nevertheless rose above their contemporaries and soared to new heights. So, when it came time for the American founders to try their hand at statecraft, they naturally opted to fuse elements of Greek democracy and Roman republicanism together to forge a new and lasting, American, democratic-republic. It was long before this experiment was put to the test, when in 1861, a great “civil war” broke out. We’ve been taught to believe that the experiment survived the war - not only did the government graciously preserve liberty, but they’ve been spreading it abroad ever since. What if this isn’t true? What if liberty and self-government didn’t survive the war? What if all the foreign military aggression ever since has really been an excuse for the victors - an elite cabal of financial interests - to retain and tighten their grip on power? In this book you’ll find a narrative of American history you’ve likely never heard before: the Truth.

Peopled by larger-than-life heroes and villains, charged with towering questions of good and evil, Atlas Shrugged is Ayn Rand’s magnum opus: a philosophical revolution told in the form of an action thriller—nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read. Who is John Galt? When he says that he will stop the motor of the world, is he a destroyer or a liberator? Why does he have to fight his battles not against his enemies but against those who need him most? Why does he fight his hardest battle against the woman he loves? You will know the answer to these questions when you discover the reason behind the baffling events that play havoc with the lives of the amazing men and women in this book. You will discover why a productive genius becomes a worthless playboy...why a great steel industrialist is working for his own destruction...why a composer gives up his career on the night of his triumph...why a beautiful woman who runs a transcontinental railroad falls in love with the man she has sworn to kill. Atlas Shrugged, a modern classic and Rand’s most extensive statement of Objectivism—her groundbreaking philosophy—offers the reader the spectacle of human greatness, depicted with all the poetry and power of one of the twentieth century’s leading artists.

Written in the same year that he testified before the Currency Commission in Austria-Hungary, and published in English in 1892, Carl Menger explains that it is not government edicts that create money but instead the marketplace. Individuals decide what the most marketable good is for use as a medium of exchange. “Man himself is the beginning and the end of every economy,” Menger wrote, and so it is with deciding what is to be traded as money."Money has not been generated by law. In its origin it is a social, and not a state institution. Sanction by the authority of the state is a notion alien to it. "This is the first time this essay has been in print in more than a century!Introduction by Doug French

Already famous throughout Europe, this international bestseller plumbs recently opened archives in the former Soviet bloc to reveal the actual, practical accomplishments of Communism around the world: terror, torture, famine, mass deportations, and massacres. Astonishing in the sheer detail it amasses, the book is the first comprehensive attempt to catalogue and analyze the crimes of Communism over seventy years. "Revolutions, like trees, must be judged by their fruit," Ignazio Silone wrote, and this is the standard the authors apply to the Communist experience―in the China of "the Great Helmsman," Kim Il Sung's Korea, Vietnam under "Uncle Ho" and Cuba under Castro, Ethiopia under Mengistu, Angola under Neto, and Afghanistan under Najibullah. The authors, all distinguished scholars based in Europe, document Communist crimes against humanity, but also crimes against national and universal culture, from Stalin's destruction of hundreds of churches in Moscow to Ceausescu's leveling of the historic heart of Bucharest to the widescale devastation visited on Chinese culture by Mao's Red Guards. As the death toll mounts―as many as 25 million in the former Soviet Union, 65 million in China, 1.7 million in Cambodia, and on and on―the authors systematically show how and why, wherever the millenarian ideology of Communism was established, it quickly led to crime, terror, and repression. An extraordinary accounting, this book amply documents the unparalleled position and significance of Communism in the hierarchy of violence that is the history of the twentieth century.