Ruim zeven jaar geleden ruilde Peter Vandermeersch zijn baan als hoofdredacteur van De Standaard voor die van hoofdredacteur van nrc en verruilde hij Brussel voor Amsterdam. Intussen overweegt hij ook serieus om zijn Belgische paspoort om te ruilen voor dat van Nederland.0In dit boek gaat hij op zoek naar het Nederland waar hij zo van wil houden. Hij kwam terecht in het debat over Zwarte Piet en zag hoe Oranje niet meer lijkt te kunnen voetballen. Hij leerde premier Rutte kennen als ?een man zonder eigenschappen? en telde te weinig vrouwen in de politiek. Hij keek hoe Parijs en Den Haag vochten om twee schilderijen en hoe een Grote Dikke Ik de mensen bezighield. Hij hoorde iemand Nederland vergelijken met het Sicilië aan de Maas en iemand anders Amsterdam met Disney. Maar toen een vriend van hem scherpe kritiek uitte op Nederland, nam hij meteen de verdediging van zijn nieuwe land op zich.

This book combines a description of about fifty important textile machines with an analysis of their evolution. Each machine is dealt with in the context of its time, showing the impact that even a simple device like the fulling stocks had on textile production. The greater organisation of the domestic system in the eighteenth century gave impetus to the development of machines like the dandy loom and the spinning jenny. The author examines the revolutionary inventions of the late eighteenth century and how they led to the industrialisation of the textile industry.

With the recent biomedical discovery on the human genome, what lies in store for new medicine? In LIFE SCRIPT, Nicholas Wade claims that medicine is still in its dark age. We think of our medicine as sophisticated but a few decades from now much of it may be regarded with the same horror as we view the barber-surgeons of the 18th century. But with the human genome now in hand, we can begin to lay the foundation for understanding the body. Decoding genomic information is leading to a revolution -- the genome and new cell biology will create the basis for a new medicine. Consider a new way of healing the body: instead of cutting the flesh with scalpels, poisoning it with chemical drugs or burning it with radiation, the physician would gently treat the body with nothing but cells and proteins, seeking to mend like with like; instead of depending only on his own knowledge, the physician would seek to tap the information in the genome, and to exploit the fact that the body's cells are designed to be a self-assembling system, when given the right signals. LIFE SCRIPT will explore how we will be affected, from the benefits of cancer treatments and immunisation to the grey moral areas of genetic engineering and longevity. Possession of the genome, states Wade, is a loss of innocence, in that it puts an unprecedented kind of power into our hands; sooner or later we will have to choose whether to use it, and to what end.

This volume focuses on our present knowledge of pharmaceuticals in the Biblical and Rabbinic world, a subject which has received little attention. Although many aspects of ancient Near Eastern cultural life have been studied thoroughly, no one has dealt with the pharmaceutical knowledge of this period.The essays in this study deal with their themes in different ways. They thus provide the best current information on a particular subject. They also demonstrate various approaches which may prove fruitful for further investigation.References in specialized studies and archeological field work have demonstrated that our knowledge in this area continues to grow. The fragmented and isolated nature of this material has led to it remaining unknown to those interested in the history of medicine, pharmacy, and horticulture. The authors have sought to fill this gap.

Een schrijver staat in dubio over de weg die hij zijn hoofdpersoon wil laten gaan.