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" The waterless sea : "
Christopher Pinney.
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BL
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| Record Number
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855447
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| Main Entry
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Pinney, Christopher
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| Title & Author
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The waterless sea : : a curious history of mirages /\ Christopher Pinney.
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| Publication Statement
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London, UK :: Reaktion Books,, 2018
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, ©2018
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| Page. NO
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184 pages :: illustrations (some color) ;; 22 cm
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| ISBN
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1780239327
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: 9781780239323
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| Bibliographies/Indexes
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Includes bibliographical references (pages 151-168) and index.
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| Contents
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Prologue: Chasing mirage -- Strange visions under a cliff in central India, October 1829 -- A world history of mirages: the thirst of the gazelle -- 'Fallacious evidence of the senses' -- 'Mocking our distress' -- Cold and hot: the geography or mirage -- Mirage and crisis -- Oriental mirages and 'spectatorial democracy' -- From clam-monsters to representative democracy -- The halted viewer and sfumato -- Memory and modernity -- Theatrical mirages -- The 'mirage medium of fancy' -- Mirage and Oriental despotism -- Keeping Mecca and Medina invisible -- Inside Abdul Hamid II's head -- Mirage pharmakon: wild and domestic -- Epilogue: Real, but not true.
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| Abstract
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"Mirages have long astonished travelers of the sea and beguiled thirsty desert voyagers. Chinese and Japanese poetry and images depicted mirages as the exhalations of clam-monsters. Indian sources related them to the 'thirst of gazelles,' a metaphor for the futility of desire. From the late eighteenth century to the present, mirages became a symbol of 'Oriental despotis,' a malign, but also enchanted, emblem. But the mirage motif is rarely simply condemnatory. More commonly it conveys a sense of escape, of fascination, of a desire to be deceived. The Waterless Sea is the first book devoted to the theories and history of mirages. Christopher Pinney navigates a sinuous pathway through a mysterious and evanescent terrain, showing how mirages have impacted politics, culture, science, and religion, and how we can continue to learn from their sublimity"--Dust jacket.
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| Subject
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Meteorological optics-- History.
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Mirages-- History.
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Fata Morgana
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Meteorological optics.
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| Subject
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Mirages.
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| Dewey Classification
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551.56/5
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| LC Classification
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QC976.M6P566 2018
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