Jane Stevenson – författare

An authoritative, richly illustrated history, and affectionate celebration, of Siena, one of the best-loved and most-visited cities in Italy.Occupying a hilltop site in the midst of a vast, undulating landscape, Siena is as much a magnet for contemporary tourism as Florence. However, its proud republican past presents an intriguing contrast with its Medici-dominated northern Tuscan rival, with which it tussled for local supremacy for much of the High Middle Ages. From the twelfth century, profiting from its advantageous position on a major pilgrim route, the Republic of Siena developed into a major European power and remained an important commercial, financial and artistic centre for four centuries.Jane Stevenson charts the changing fortunes of a city that rose to an astonishingly productive cultural heyday in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, suffered a catastrophic late medieval decline in the aftermath of the Black Death, but transcended the loss of its wider political power to enjoy a prosperous civic afterlife. Siena today enjoys a cherished position as a uniquely well-preserved medieval city, crammed with world-class art and architecture, furnished with appealing and intriguing traditions, and set in a heavenly landscape.

Innovation Leaders Praise Breaking Away

“Finally, innovation in a framework that is clear, insightful and easy to put into practice. This is a must read.”—Angela Ahrendts, Chief Executive Officer, Burberry

“Breaking Away has a clear and important message: that innovation—the dogged pursuit of new solutions to old problems—is often the defining feature of a successful endeavor, be it a research project, a corporation or a society.”—Dean Kamen, CEO, DEKA, inventor of the heart stent, the Segway,and many other transformational innovations

“Using case studies and real examples, Jane Stevenson and Bilal Kaafarani uncover the missing ingredient in innovation—getting the most from your people. This book shows you how companies can excel.”—Joel Kurtzman, Milken Institute and Wharton’s SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management

“Innovation requires top leadership with courage and passion to win. With its four levels of innovation.Breaking Away provides a great road map for success. A must read for any executive.”—Denise Morrison, Board Member, COO and CEO Elect, The Campbell Soup Company

“A fabulous read! Breaking Away artfully defines innovation and clarifies the critical role leadership plays in nurturing the right culture for innovation and growth.”—Marco Jesi, Chairman of the Board, Limoni Profumerie S.P.A.

“At last, a book that captures the critical role leadership plays in enabling a culture where innovation is stimulated, valued, supported and celebrated. The authors have gone deep to understand what the best CEO’s do to develop continuous innovation as a competitive edge. Breaking Away gives us a clear framework to make that happen in every organization.”—Cynthia McCague, Board of Directors, Monster.com and former SVP Human Resources, The Coca-Cola Company

”Stevenson and Kaafarani 'break away' from traditional thinking to converge on a powerful thesis that will forever change how we view innovation.”—Judith Glaser, CEO Benchmark Communications, Inc, and the bestselling author of Creating We and DNA of Leadership

“A how-to guide on inspiring a culture of innovation in your workplace.”—CIO Insight’s Best Business Books for 2011

About the Book

The key to generating growth and shareholder value today is the ability to develop and embed innovation into every facet of business. But how do you do that?

Leadership. It takes a business leader with vision and a sense of accountability to merge corporate culture and innovation processes into a powerful, self-sustaining engine that dominates markets. Without that kind of leadership, a company is just spinning its wheels.

Breaking Away provides the framework to be that leader—and to create other leaders who will drive your company into a future of profits and growth.

Pioneers in the field of innovation leadership, Jane Stevenson and Bilal Kaafarani provide a simple but powerful model for breaking away from your industry pack by fully utilizing your employees, technology, and resources. You’ll learn how:

Ford beat Toyota in the race to create the first hybrid (and why everyone thinks it was vice versa)GE’s development of a locomotive battery makes planet earth more sustainableSkype landed 480 million registered users in its first four years of businessEmirates airline has grown from a small, regional carrier to one of the world’s top three airlines

Different organizations, different industries . . . one thing in common: a cadre of leaders who understand the nature of innovation, develop well-defined priorities, and maintain a powerful sense of accountability.

Breaking Away will change the way you approach leadership and innovation—and put you on the road to market domination.

These four novellas are narrated by a brilliantly distinctive voice telling the stories of an Anglo-Italian Professor of Semiotics undone by his own cleverness; an Irish woman who joins a Tibetan nunnery in India; the old university friends whose party is galvanised by a pugnacious newcomer into a demented Buchanesque mission to restore their hostess's lost humour; and an international lawyer who takes to terrorism in pursuit of a theory. Several Deceptions is clever, funny and a little cruel and introduces a writer of quite remarkable gifts.

Jane Stevenson arrived on the British literary scene with a book called Several Deceptions. A collection of four novellas, it was unashamedly erudite, marvellously witty and just a little bit cruel. It revived a neglected form quite brilliantly.Now, after four acclaimed novels, she returns with another sparkling novella collection. In 'Light My Fire' a passionate relationship cannot withstand a clash of tastes and an ancient Aga; a housewife's life is transformed when she starts to see angels in 'Walking with Angels'; and 'Garden Guerillas' follows a widow plotting an elaborate horticultural revenge on her daughter-in-law. Despite being framed by domesticity, these stories are wickedly potent and each has a string in its tale.

Women Latin Poets addresses women's relationship to culture between the first century B. C. and the eighteenth century A. D. by studying women's poetry in Latin. Based entirely on original archival research in twelve countries, Stevenson recovers an aspect of history often deemed not to exist: women who achieved public recognition in their own time, sometimes to a startling extent. Presenting, often for the first time, the work of more than three hundred women Latin poets, all translated and included in a comprehensive finding guide, Women Latin Poets substantially revises received opinion on women's participation in, and relation to, élite culture. The sheer number of female Latin poets will require women's historians to completely re-evaluate the idea that all women had 'no access to education' before the nineteenth century.

Baroque between the Wars is a fascinating and new account of the arts in the twenties and thirties. We often think of this time as being dominated by modernism, yet the period saw a dialogue between modern baroque - eclectic, playful, camp, open to influence from popular culture yet in dialogue with the past, and unafraid of the grotesque or surreal - and modernism, which was theory-driven, didactic, exclusive, and essentially neo-classical. Jane Stevenson argues that both baroque and classical forms were equally valid responses to the challenge of modernity, by setting painting and literature in the context of 'minor arts' such as interior design, photography, fashion, ballet, and flower arranging, and by highlighting the social context and sexual politics of creative production. Accessibly written and generously illustrated, the volume focuses on artists, artefacts, clients, places, and publicists to demonstrate how baroque offered a whole way of being modern which was actively subversive of the tenets of modernism and practised by the people modernism habitually defined as not worth listening to, particularly women and homosexuals.

Baroque between the Wars is a fascinating account of the arts in the twenties and thirties. We often think of this time as being dominated by modernism, yet the period saw a dialogue between modern baroque - eclectic, playful, camp, open to influence from popular culture but connected with the past, and unafraid of the grotesque or surreal - and modernism, which was theory-driven, didactic, exclusive, and essentially neo-classical.Jane Stevenson argues that both baroque and classical forms were equally valid responses to the challenge of modernity. Setting painting and literature in the context of 'minor arts' such as interior design, photography, fashion, ballet, and flower arranging, and by highlighting the social context and sexual politics of creative production, Stevenson offers a new and exciting interpretation of one of the most renowned artistic movements of the 20th century. Accessibly written and generously illustrated, the volume focuses on artists, artefacts, clients, places, and publicists to demonstrate how baroque offered a whole new way of being modern. The modern baroque was an active subversion of the tenets of modernism, practised by the people that modernism habitually excluded. Stevenson brings those excluded groups into the centrefold of the modern baroque movement in a rich history of the alternative style which has influenced much of the art, architecture, performance and literature of today.

Women Latin Poets addresses women's relationship to culture between the first century B. C. and the eighteenth century A. D. by studying women's poetry in Latin. Based entirely on original archival research in twelve countries, Stevenson recovers an aspect of history often deemed not to exist: women who achieved public recognition in their own time, sometimes to a startling extent. Presenting, often for the first time, the work of more than three hundred women Latin poets, all translated and included in a comprehensive finding guide, Women Latin Poets substantially revises received opinion on women's participation in, and relation to, élite culture. The sheer number of female Latin poets will require women's historians to completely re-evaluate the idea that all women had 'no access to education' before the nineteenth century.

Early Modern Women Poets represents a complete reexamination of the field, based on extensive archival research in manuscripts and early modern printed books. While it contains lavish selections from important poets such as Aphra Behn, Katherine Philips, and Aemilia Lanyer, almost half of the material included is previously unpublished and uncollected. It aims to introduce the reader to a conspectus of the verse written by women from c.1520 to 1700, at all social levels from the verse of court elite to working-class women's aphorisms, libels, and charms. All genres of verse used by early modern women are represented; as are all languages in which women's verse survives: Classical Greek and Latin, French, Italian, English, Scots, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Irish. Each woman's work is accompanied by a headnote which combines biographic information with some guidance as to the context, intended audience, and genre of her work. The collection is organized chronologically. It should be possible, as never before, to see what early modern women wrote, how they wrote it, who they wrote for, and what they said.

Old Mortality (1816), which many consider the finest of Scott's Waverley novels, is a swift-moving historical romance that places an anachronistically liberal hero against the forces of fanaticism in seventeenth-century Scotland, in the period infamous as the `killing time'. Its central character, Henry Morton, joins the rebels in order to fight Scotland's royalist oppressors, little as he shares the Covenanters' extreme religious beliefs. He is torn between his love for a royalist's granddaughter and his loyalty to his downtrodden countrymen.As well as being a tale of divided loyalties, the novel is a crucial document in the cultural history of modern Scotland. Scott, himself a supporter of the union between Scotland and England, was trying to exorcise the violent past of a country uncomfortably coming to terms with its status as part of a modern United Kingdom. This novel is in itself a significant political document, in which Scott can be seen to be attempting to create a new centralist Scottish historiography, which is not the political consensus of his own time, the seventeenth century, or today. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The Laterculus Malalianus, a historical exegesis of the life of Christ, appears to be the only complete text to survive from the hand of Archbishop Theodore at Canterbury. Its language, style and intellectual frame of reference are thus of great importance for establishing the nature and scope of teaching at Canterbury, the first school of Anglo-Saxon England. This edition, with translation and commentary, is the third volume in this series to offer a reassessment of Canterbury as a major seat of learning, together with Bernhard Bischoff's and Michael Lapidge's edition of the biblical commentaries from the Canterbury school and Michael Lapidge's edited collection of essays on the life and influence of Archbishop Theodore. In the introduction Jane Stevenson examines the intellectual milieu of this work, argues the case for attribution to Theodore, and suggests the need for a complete rethinking of the basis of Anglo-Saxon culture.

The Laterculus Malalianus, a historical exegesis of the life of Christ, appears to be the only complete text to survive from the hand of Archbishop Theodore at Canterbury. Its language, style and intellectual frame of reference are thus of great importance for establishing the nature and scope of teaching at Canterbury, the first school of Anglo-Saxon England. This edition, with translation and commentary, is the third volume in this series to offer a reassessment of Canterbury as a major seat of learning, together with Bernhard Bischoff's and Michael Lapidge's edition of the biblical commentaries from the Canterbury school and Michael Lapidge's edited collection of essays on the life and influence of Archbishop Theodore. In the introduction Jane Stevenson examines the intellectual milieu of this work, argues the case for attribution to Theodore, and suggests the need for a complete rethinking of the basis of Anglo-Saxon culture.

This volume commences with the the books and manuscripts given at the foundation of King's College in 1495, continues with the collections which accrued to Marischal College from its foundation in 1593, and comes together with the fusion of the two colleges in 1860 in the modern University of Aberdeen.From the beginning, the scope and focus of the University was international, and its developing collections represent a microcosm of the world of knowledge as it changed over the centuries. The University Colleges of Aberdeen have a distinct intellectual tradition: pragmatically tolerant in times of persecution; dissident from the religious and political policies of the Lowlands; looking outwards to the world of northern Europe and to the territories of the Jacobite diaspora.The book introduces one of the oldest continually-evolving academic library collections of the Anglophone world, surveys its history and includes a series of studies of items or collections of particular interest.

Warren's book has been the single most useful compendium of information about the ritual aspects of the Celtic Church, which are of both historical and theological interest, since it was first published in 1881. It includes both acritical account of Celtic liturgy, and a collection of editions of Celtic liturgical texts, Cornish, Welsh, Scottish, and Irish, not all of which has been superseded. This new issue builds on the book's time-tested value by including an extensive new Introduction and Bibliography, which summarise current thought in liturgiology and Celtic history, and which are written with the needs of both Celticists and liturgists in mind.

The story of the Renaissance city and palace of Urbino, and the life of the extraordinary man who created it: Federico da Montefeltro. 'Painstakingly researched and yet unfailingly readable' Ross King 'An insight into one of Renaissance Italy's most glamorous courts' Catherine Fletcher 'The perfect tour guide to the past' Literary Review 'A fabulous merging of seductive design with bravura scholarship' Alexandra Harris 'A superior study... Packed with detail' TLSThe one-eyed mercenary soldier Federico da Montefeltro, lord of Urbino between 1444 and 1482, was one of the most successful condottiere of the Italian Renaissance: renowned humanist, patron of the artist Piero della Francesca, and creator of one of the most celebrated libraries in Italy outside the Vatican. From 1460 until her early death in 1472 he was married to Battista, of the formidable Sforza family, their partnership apparently blissful. In the fine palace he built overlooking Urbino, Federico assembled a court regarded by many as representing a high point of Renaissance culture. For Baldassare Castiglione, Federico was la luce dell'Italia – 'the light of Italy'.Jane Stevenson's affectionate account of Urbino's flowering and decline casts revelatory light on patronage, politics and humanism in fifteenth-century Italy. As well as recounting the gripping stories of Federico and his Montefeltro and della Rovere successors, Stevenson considers in details Federico's cultural legacy – investigating the palace itself, the splendours of the ducal library, and his other architectural projects in Gubbio and elsewhere.