Gábor Hushegyi, Zsolt Sőrés: Transart Communication: Performance & Multimedia Art Studio erté 1987-2007 (2008) [English, Slovak, Hungarian]

“Monografia dokumentuje dvadsaťročnú činnosť legendárneho umeleckého združenia Štúdio erté v anglickom, slovenskom a maďarskom jazyku. Skupinu založili József R. Juhász, Ilona Németh, Ottó Mészáros a Attila Simon v roku 1987 v Nových Zámkoch. Počas svojho pôsobenia sa združenie preslávilo organizovaním festivalov alternatívneho, experimentálneho a multimediálneho umenia, umením performancie, výstavnou, ale aj edičnou a edukačnou činnosťou. Aktivity zoskupenia nie je možné vnímať mimo spoločensko-politického kontextu strednej Európy v 80. a 90. rokoch minulého storočia. Práve spoločenská realita totalitného systému a menšinového geta boli príčinou ich vzniku. Činnosť skupiny v knihe priblížia texty Gábora Hushegyiho a Zsolta Sőrésa a rozsiahla obrazová dokumentácia.”

Edited by Gábor Hushegyi, József R. Juhász, Ilona Németh
Publisher Kalligram, Bratislava, 2008
ISBN 8071499757
296 pages

Transart Communication on Monoskop wiki
Jozsef R. Juhász on Monoskop wiki
performance art in Slovakia on Monoskop wiki

Publisher

PDF (17 MB, updated on 2021-11-4)

Andrew Wilson: Belarus: The Last European Dictatorship (2011)

This book is the first in English to explore both Belarus’s complicated road to nationhood and to examine in detail its politics and economics since 1991, the nation’s first year of true independence. Andrew Wilson focuses particular attention on Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s surprising longevity as president, despite human rights abuses and involvement in yet another rigged election in December 2010.

Wilson looks at Belarusian history as a series of false starts in the medieval and pre-modern periods, and at the many rival versions of Belarusian identity, culminating with the Soviet Belarusian project and the establishment of Belarus’s current borders during World War II. He also addresses Belarus’s on-off relationship with Russia, its simultaneous attempts to play a game of balance in the no-man’s-land between Russia and the West, and how, paradoxically, Belarus is at last becoming a true nation under the rule of Europe’s “last dictator.”

Publisher Yale University Press, 2011
ISBN 0300134355, 9780300134353
304 pages

review (Lucy Popescu, Independent)

Publisher
Google books

PDF (16 MB, updated on 2014-9-14)

Walter Isaacson: Steve Jobs (2011)

Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.

At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.

Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.

Driven by demons, Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and products were interrelated, just as Apple’s hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.

Publisher Simon & Schuster, 2011
ISBN 1451648553, 9781451648553
656 pages

review (Evgeny Morozov, The New Republic)
review (Sam Leith, Guardian)
review (Janet Maslin, The New York Times)
review (Adam Satariano and Peter Burrows, Bloomberg)
review (Huffington Post)

Publisher

PDF (updated on 2012-7-25)
EPUB (updated on 2012-7-25)