Michael Meyer

‘Makes the case for Annie Besant as a truly eminent Victorian, as brilliant and fearless as she was beautiful’ The Times_________London, 1877. A petite young woman stands before an all-male jury, about to risk everything. She takes a breath, and opens her defence. Annie Besant and her confidant Charles Bradlaugh are on trial for the crime of publishing a birth control pamphlet. Remarkably, Annie is defending herself against obscenity charges 45 years before women can practice law in England. At a time when women were expected to be obedient, Annie’s fearless voice was a sensation and spotlighted issues of sex, censorship and morality. A Dirty, Filthy Book tells the gripping story of a little-known pioneer who refused to accept the role that the establishment assigned her, and chose instead to resist.

London, 1877. A petite young woman stands before an all-male jury, about to risk everything. She takes a breath, and opens her defence. Annie Besant and her confidant Charles Bradlaugh are on trial for the sordid crime of publishing and selling a birth control pamphlet. Remarkably – forty-five years before the first woman will be admitted to the English bar – Annie is defending herself. Before Britain’s highest judge she declares it is a woman’s right to choose when, and if, to have children. At a time when women were legally and socially subservient to men, Annie’s defiant voice was a sensation. The riveting trial scandalised newspapers, captivated the British public and sparked a debate over morals, censorship and sex. Drawing on unpublished archives, private papers and courtroom transcripts – and featuring an incredible cast including Queen Victoria, George Bernard Shaw and London itself – A Dirty, Filthy Book tells the gripping story of a forgotten pioneer who refused to accept the role the Establishment assigned to her. Instead, she chose to resist.

London, 1877. A petite young woman stands before an all-male jury, about to risk everything. She takes a breath, and opens her defence. Annie Besant and her confidant Charles Bradlaugh are on trial for the sordid crime of publishing and selling a birth control pamphlet. Remarkably - forty-five years before the first woman will be admitted to the English bar - Annie is defending herself. Before Britain's highest judge she declares a woman's right to choose when, and if, to have children. At a time when women were legally and socially subservient to men, Annie's defiant voice was a sensation. The riveting trial scandalised newspapers, captivated the British public and sparked a debate over morals, censorship and sex. Drawing on unpublished archives, private papers and courtroom transcripts - and featuring an incredible cast including Queen Victoria, George Bernard Shaw and London itself - A Dirty, Filthy Book tells the gripping story of a forgotten pioneer who refused to accept the role the Establishment assigned to her. Instead, she chose to resist.

'Continuously rewarding...the model of what a biography of a great writer should be' Dennis Potter, The Times. Generally acknowledged as the founder of modern prose drama, Henrik Ibsen is now regarded as the first major innovative modern dramatist. Creating new attitudes to theatre, he is credited with being one of the first to write about ordinary people in prose, abandoning traditional theatrical effects in favour of a new style of performance. Michael Meyer is the world authority on Ibsen, and this highly acclaimed biography is regarded as the definitive life of the founding genius of modern European theatre.

In order to track and assess historical processes and cultural dynamics across large areas, the respective chronologies must be reliably correlated. In the late Iron Age in Central Europe, the approaches sometimes diverge widely, a problem that is particularly relevant for the synchronisation of the absolute chronology between La Tène, Jastorf and Przeworsk. This paper examines the central forms to determine the extent to which they can be used for large-scale horizontal alignment. Using the example of the Kostrzewski K and Almgren 18a types of brooches, their synchronisation potential is analysed on the basis of a detailed reconceptualisation of the classification of variants. This reveals remarkable asynchronies and regional variants, which significantly reduce the number of usable brooches. This makes individual variants that connect the north and the La Tène culture, but only occur in a few places in the south, all the more remarkable. It becomes clear that any attempt to harmonise chronological systems requires a detailed analysis of the types used.

The incredible story of Benjamin Franklin's parting gift to the working-class people of Boston and Philadelphia--a deathbed wager that captures the Founder's American Dream and his lessons for our current, conflicted age. Benjamin Franklin was not a gambling man. But at the end of his illustrious life, the Founder allowed himself a final wager on the survival of the United States: a gift of two thousand pounds to Boston and Philadelphia, to be lent out to tradesmen over the next two centuries to jump-start their careers. Each loan would be repaid with interest over ten years. If all went according to Franklin's inventive scheme, the accrued final payout in 1991 would be a windfall. In Benjamin Franklin's Last Bet, Michael Meyer traces the evolution of these twin funds as they age alongside America itself, bankrolling woodworkers and silversmiths, trade schools and space races. Over time, Franklin's wager was misused, neglected, and contested--but never wholly extinguished. With charm and inquisitive flair, Meyer shows how Franklin's stake in the "leather-apron" class remains in play to this day, and offers an inspiring blueprint for prosperity in our modern era of growing wealth disparity and social divisions.

Häufig ist zu hören, dass Mathematik schwierig, nicht anwendbar und formal sei, die Schulmathematik der Grund- und unteren Sekundarstufe jedoch einfach, anwendbar und verständlich. In beiden Ansichten verbirgt sich jedoch nur die halbe Wahrheit. Fangen wir doch einfach einmal bei der Arithmetik in der Grundschule an: Warum hat eine Rechenoperation wie die Division eigentlich nur ein einziges Ergebnis? Woher kommen die natürlichen Zahlen? Die elementare Mathematik beruht bei Weitem nicht nur auf der Nutzung der vier verschiedenen Grundrechenarten. Insbesondere das Unterrichten von Mathematik beinhaltet nicht nur das Wissen um mathematische Objekte, sondern auch um deren Ursprünge und Beziehungen untereinander. Anders formuliert: Die elementare Schulmathematik muss von einem höheren Standpunkt aus betrachtet werden. Die Idee des Buches ist einfach erklärt: Es geht in erster Linie um die Einführung in mathematische Denk- und Schreibweisen und erst danach um das Erlernen bestimmter mathematischer Inhalte. Vorbereitende Aufgaben, die an der Mathematik der Grund- und unteren Sekundarstufe ansetzen, sollen Einblick in die Inhalte des jeweiligen Kapitels vermitteln, sodass die Inhalte selbst weniger Probleme bereiten sollten. Ausgehend hiervon wird der Fokus auf die Darstellung der Inhalte und den Umgang mit ihnen gelegt. Die Präsentation der Inhalte in Form von Definitionen, Sätzen und Beweisen bildet den Kern der Inhaltsbetrachtungen. Hierbei wird häufig zwischen einer formalen Darstellung und einer Prosaform gewechselt, teilweise (insbesondere zu Beginn des Buches) wird beides angeführt. Die Wahl der jeweiligen Darstellung dient dem Aufbau von Verständnis bei der Leserschaft (das Buch richtet sich an Lehramtsstudierende für Primarstufe, Sonderpädagogik und Sekundarstufe I). Durch die Wahl einer Prosaform werden an einigen Stellen mathematische Details wegfallen. Die Mathematikexpert*innen mögen dies verzeihen.

The incredible story of Benjamin Franklin's parting gift to the working-class people of Boston and Philadelphia--a deathbed wager that captures the Founder's American Dream and his lessons for our current, conflicted age. Benjamin Franklin was not a gambling man. But at the end of his illustrious life, the Founder allowed himself a final wager on the survival of the United States: a gift of two thousand pounds to Boston and Philadelphia, to be lent out to tradesmen over the next two centuries to jump-start their careers. Each loan would be repaid with interest over ten years. If all went according to Franklin's inventive scheme, the accrued final payout in 1991 would be a windfall. In Benjamin Franklin's Last Bet, Michael Meyer traces the evolution of these twin funds as they age alongside America itself, bankrolling woodworkers and silversmiths, trade schools and space races. Over time, Franklin's wager was misused, neglected, and contested--but never wholly extinguished. With charm and inquisitive flair, Meyer shows how Franklin's stake in the "leather-apron" class remains in play to this day, and offers an inspiring blueprint for prosperity in our modern era of growing wealth disparity and social divisions.