René Solomon Books

Ptolemy's comprehensive treatises on astronomy and geography were influential for nearly two millennia. Equally influential was his treatise on harmonics, the ancient science which combined and brought to completion the study of philosophy and science. This volume offers a comprehensive English translation and commentary of Ptolemy's Harmonics .The treatise begins with Ptolemy's study of pitches and intervals, for which he extracts both an idealized musical scale and a new acoustical tool. After discussing modulation, he expands his horizons by applying musical intervals to the human soul and celestial bodies, ultimately describing a cosmic harmony.The English translation faithfully reproduces Ptolemy's style and includes all the charts surviving in the manuscript tradition. The commentary offers a full exegesis of the text, loci paralleli, and citations of modern scholarly sources.

This book treats the renowned Austrian author and artist -- as thinker, by tracing the basic ideas in his novels and dramas; as artist, by tracing the genesis of characteristic works until the final satisfying version, a process that could take up to twenty years to complete. Schnitzler was above all a perfectionist. Schnitzler's creative work is largely an expression of his yearning for life and his preoccupation with death. At his best he is not a cheerful poet. Death ever lurks behind the merry words and the lighthearted love affairs of his characters. Repeatedly this "diagnostician of his time" reminds us that all acts and relations, all eternal vows and farflung ambitions are but transitory. It is this conscious-ness of death's omnipresence which often lends to Schnitzler's works the unique melancholy and particular pathos associated with his name.Schnitzler is regarded today not only as the outstanding author of his generation in Austria, but also as a writer who belongs to world literature.

Silent Sun chronicles one man's journey to uncover his heritage amidst the horrors of Nazi labor camps, showcasing the resilience of the human spirit. Solomon Gross, living in Chrzanow, Poland, sensed impending doom as Polish cavalry passed silently by in September 1939. By 1940, his fears materialized when he was imprisoned in Sakran, a labor camp where he endured grueling conditions—cutting sod in the heat, shoveling snow in freezing temperatures, and subsisting on meager potato soup. His ordeal intensified at Graditz camp in 1941, where one hundred people were forced to survive on rations meant for forty. Over two and a half years, Gross moved between Graditz and Faulbruck, relying on his survival instincts. He smuggled food and used his blacksmithing skills to distract the guards. In late 1944, Gross was transferred to Sportschule, part of the Grossrosen concentration camp, where he was stripped of his identity. Despite the bleakness, he found ways to persevere—writing letters to his future wife, Dorka, and sharing food with friends. Gross reflects on his four-year wait for liberation, which arrived with the sound of Allied bombers. While wartime life had its fleeting joys, including a sweet courtship and kindness from some, postwar challenges persisted. Yet, Gross remained irrepressible, ultimately finding warmth in the heritage he longed for, like the silent sun he admired.

Crucible of Ideas is a collection of selected articles previously published in academic journals, as well as papers read at conferences of learned societies in the course of the past forty years. Various areas of interest are literature, philosophy, educational theory, and history of ideas, with emphasis on Spanish-American themes. A cursory glance at some of the figures dealt with suggests the multifaceted nature of the Francisco Romero, Ernesto Sábato, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Ortega y Gasset, José Carlos Mariátegui, Francisco Giner de los Ríos. Highlights of each author's work are discussed.

Count Aehrenthal, Austro-Hungarian foreign minister (1906-1912), is well-known to diplomatic historian for the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908. Solomon Wank„s biography, the first since 1917, shows that Aehrenthal“s life and work transcend diplomatic history and illuminate critical problems threatening the viability of the Habsburg Monarchy. Wank focuses on the inseparable connection between foreign and internal affairs in Aehrenthal„s thinking, his involvement in domestic politics, his attempt to transform the office of the foreign minister into that of an imperial chancellor, his grand scheme of constitutional reform to solve the South Slav problem within the empire, and his personality. The work is based on unpublished documents in Austrian and Czech archives, as well as recently published correspondence with Habsburg diplomats and aristocratic relatives and friends, and with his parents. Volume I covers the history of the Aehrenthal family, Aehrenthal“s early years and education, his personality and political outlook, his diplomatic career and his involvement in domestic politics from 1878 to the eve of appointment as foreign minister.