Current thinking on arms control and disarmament has been dominated by the analysis of such "objective" factors as the number of weapons, their characteristics, technological developments and nuclear weapons deployment policies. Yet arms control negotiations have had little success so far. In this volume, Daniel Frei asserts that while such objective analysis is indeed indispensable, it needs to be supplemented by a careful, document-based description of Soviet and U.S. perceptions of one another and of the kind of assumptions that have thus far compelled their leaders to seek security in growing numbers of sophisticated weapons at ever-increasing cost.

Mutual Perceptions and Images in Japanese-German Relations, 1860–2010 examines the mutual images formed between Japan and Germany from the mid-nineteenth to twenty-first centuries, and the influence of these images on the development of bilateral relations. Unlike earlier research on Japanese-German relations, which focused on the similarity of these countries’ historical trajectories, this publication presents a more nuanced picture. It relativizes perceptions of a special “spiritual relationship” between Japan and Germany as well as their commonalities of “national character” through an exploration of previously untapped historical visual and textual sources. With essays by sixteen leading scholars in the field, this collection is an invaluable contribution to the historiography of modern Japan and Germany, and to the field of international relations. Contributors are: Hans-Joachim Bieber, Fukuoka Mariko, Hakoishi Hiroshi, Iwasa Takurō, Katō Yōko, Kawakita Atsuko, Gerhard Krebs, Kudō Akira, Heinrich Menkhaus, Danny Orbach, Peter Pantzer, Sven Saaler, Satō Takumi, Volker Stanzel, Suzuki Naoko, Tajima Nobuo, Tano Daisuke, and Rolf-Harald Wippich.

Through studying images of blood in film from the mid-1950s to the end of the 1960s, this path-breaking book explores how blood as an (audio)visual cinematic element went from predominately operating as a signifier, providing audiences with information about a film’s plot and characters, to increasingly operating in terms of affect, potentially evoking visceral and embodied responses in viewers. Using films such as The Return of Dracula, The Tingler, Blood Feast, Two Thousand Maniacs, Color Me Blood Red, Bonnie and Clyde, and The Wild Bunch, Rødje takes a novel approach to film history by following one (audio)visual element through an exploration that traverses established standards for film production and reception. This study does not heed distinctions regarding to genres (horror, western, gangster) or models of film production (exploitation, independent, studio productions) but rather maps the operations of cinematic images across marginal as well as more traditionally esteemed cinematic territories. The result is a book that rethinks and reassembles cinematic practices as well as aesthetics, and as such invites new ways to investigate how cinematic images enter relations with other images as well as with audiences.

This essay is a critique of the hermeneutical theories of Searle and Gadamer. It shows that there cannot be two approaches to the comprehension of texts. Hermeneutics cannot differentiate between statements in the sciences of Nature, such as physics and biology, and statements in the sciences of man, such as history and law.

Animal researchers commonly present pictures to their subjects, usually birds or monkeys, in order to infer how natural objects are perceived and conceptualised, or to discover the brain mechanisms underlying these abilities. This unique book questions the premise of this experimental approach and asks whether or not pictures can be considered as ecologically valid and realistic stimuli for animals. Leading researchers in comparative psychology and neuroscience address such questions as: "Can animals recognise objects of scenes in pictures despite variations in viewpoints?; "How do animals perceive faces?" and "Is there an equivalence, in animals' minds, between pictures and the objects they represent?". The result is an authoritative and cutting-edge survey of current knowledge in the field, which underlines the advantages, limits and risks of using pictures to infer cognitive abilities or brain mechanisms in animal studies. Picture Perception in Animals will be essential reading for comparative psychologists, anthropologists, and neuroscientists working in picture perception.

Many people work towards a goal of experiencing high levels of wellbeing. However, wellbeing is a highly subjective notion. In order to determine some parameters of such a multifaceted concept, this study introduces five areas representing subjectively perceived wellbeing: positive feelings, engagement (flow), social relationships, meaningfulness, experience of self-efficacy. On the basis of these five areas, diverse methods are then presented that map individual characteristics in the respective areas of people with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS). Different methods and procedures discussed in this work can contribute to increasing the level of development in each of the areas, enabling the evaluation of existing PWS services, the assessment of development processes and the comparison of services in the PWS area.