JOHN ODLING-SMEE Bücher

Alfred Smee (1818-1877) was a doctor, scientist and inventor and also a businessman, campaigner and horticulturalist. His inventions led to his election at age 22 to a Fellowship of the Royal Society. He developed nonfading ink for the Bank of England and better techniques for printing banknotes. Some of his insights into the brain were echoed a century later in computational science. He was chairman of several companies, campaigned for better water and sewage services in London and stood for Parliament. His passion was plants and gardens, and he created a garden of eight acres which he stocked with plants he collected from far and wide. His wide-ranging, full and successful life has now been chronicled by his great-great-grandson, John Odling-Smee.

Charles Theophilus Hahn, born into the English upper middle classes in 1870, was a cleric who worked in industrial towns in Yorkshire, in Southern Africa as a missionary and as an army chaplain in World War One. He loved adventure, travel and nature, and promised himself that he would have a jolly time. He left journals, sketches and watercolours which are the basis for his story, written by John Odling-Smee. The idioms and expressions in the journals recall the times in which he was writing. Many of the watercolours were inspired by the wildflowers and scenery of Africa. Taken together, his writings and paintings provide a fascinating picture of an interesting life in England and Southern Africa in turbulent times.

The book is a personal account of the changes in the economies, politics and societies of former Soviet Union countries, and the role of the IMF in helping them make the transition from planned to market economies. From 1992 to 2003, the author was in charge of the IMF's work ...