For four and a half decades, Etta and Claribel Cone roamed artists' studios and art galleries in Europe, building one of the largest, most important art collections in the world. At one time, these two independently wealthy Jewish women from Baltimore received offers from virtually every prominent art museum in the world, all anxious to house their hitherto private assemblage of modern art. In 1949, they awarded all their holdings to the Baltimore Museum of Art. In 2002, that collection was valued at nearly $1 billion, making them two of the most philanthropic art collectors of our age.Yet, for complex reasons, the story of the Cone sisters has never been fully or accurately told.Mary Gabriel, an art-minded journalist and women's historian, has, at long last, brought the little-known sisters to life, and shone the spotlight on their remarkable achievements.

Whatever you’re trying to learn about the world—as a journalist or as an informed citizen— public records often hold the key. But what records, where? And how to get them? Gaining access to records is an art, one that requires an organized approach and a good understanding of human behavior. The Art of Access: Strategies for Acquiring Public Records, Second Edition is a how-to guide for putting the law into action and using ingenuity to pry records loose. FOI experts and longtime journalists David Cuillier and Charles N. Davis present strategies for dealing with the officials who stand between you and the information you seek. They explore new developments in technology and research and the latest online innovations and tools to help you rethink the information-gathering process and develop a document state of mind.

Up-to-date guidance for conducting a successful M&A for banks and financial institutions The simmering economic climate since the financial crisis faces a front of new competition and sweeping regulatory reforms expected to drive the U.S. banking sector into consolidation in the next ten years. Capitalizing on the upcoming opportunities will take strategically focused preparation. The Art of Bank M&A is the unprecedented guide to mastering the merger and acquisition of a bank and any other financial institution. M&A transactions involving financial businesses take place in a framework of regulation, which makes them greatly different from those of commercial companies. The specialized coverage in this one-of-a-kind guide gives you an insider's interpretation of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, along with the most popular techniques and strategies used to shed and acquire financial entities within the regulation. Straightforward explanations and instructive examples from the real world reveal: Major changes in banking law and unique considerations for bank holding companies The why and how of bank M&As, including how banks achieve growth and value How to value and validate financial businesses, including the basic steps for determining a price range to purchase a bank Trends in practices, controversy, and reporting for transborder bank M&As, including a convenient summary of inbound and outbound transaction regulations Where to find opportunity in distressed and insolvent banks M&A is the most powerful and risky weapon in financial strategy, and like other books in The Art of M&A series, this latest title gives you everything you need to be savvy in the M&A arena. To prepare for the coming surge in bank mergers and acquisitions, turn to the unmatched, sector-specific guidance in The Art of Bank M&A. Whether you're a senior bank manager, a government regulator, or an individual investor, The Art of Bank M&A covers everything you need to know about the unique economic structures of banks and financial institutions and the federal regulations they must operate within. Sweeping changes brought on by the Dodd-Frank Act as well as the new economic environment still emerging from the 2007–2009 financial crisis makes this timely guide a must-read for everyone involved in banking and M&A. From valuing a business entity to post-merger integration, this conveniently organized guide walks you through every important step of a bank M&A, including: The regulatory framework of bank mergers, and the strategies and standards driving the transaction The reasons behind banks combining their resources, processes, and responsibilities through mergers How to put a price on the value one financial entity brings to another How banks create value through synergy 250 critical questions on the minds of today's forward-thinking professionals Even if you're not directly involved in M&A transactions, this book provides both institutional and individual investors with useful information on the latest investment vehicles and strategies for making money on bank stocks. Before opportunity washes away, learn The Art of Bank M&A.

As more parts of the world outside Europe became accessible =– and in the wake of social and technological developments in the 18th century – a growing number of exotic artefacts entered European markets. The markets for such objects thrived, while a collecting culture and museums emerged. This book provides insights into the methods and places of exchange, networks, prices, expertise, and valuation concepts, as well as the transfer and transport of these artefacts over 300 years and across four continents. The contributions are from international experts, including Ting Chang, Nélia Dias, Noëmie Etienne, Jonathan Fine, Philip Jones, Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie, Léa Saint-Raymond, and Masako Yamamoto.

Explore a wealth of peril and personalities in this campaign book for the world’s greatest roleplaying game, Dungeons & Dragons. Acquisitions Incorporated is a different flavor of Dungeons & Dragons. A fifth edition D&D book created in partnership with Penny Arcade Inc. and inspired by the podcast and web series, this book is full of madcap heists, hilarious moments, and all the ingredients you need to include the adventurers of Acquisitions Incorporated in your own fifth edition D&D campaign. • Start up your own Acquisitions Incorporated franchise in the Forgotten Realms or anywhere in the multiverse. • Live out your fantasy of climbing the corporate ladder of the most notorious retrieval agency in the Forgotten Realms—Acquisitions Incorporated. • The 224-page book will give Dungeon Masters and players plenty of bits to play a D&D fifth edition game just as if you were on stage with the crew at PAX! New backgrounds, character options, franchise information and more. • You'll also find an adventure that will take characters from levels 1 through 6, establishing your party's claim on a world they've just begun to explore—and to strip-mine for profit. Dungeons & Dragons is the world’s greatest roleplaying game. Created in 1974, D&D transformed gaming culture by blending traditional fantasy with miniatures and wargaming.

P.T. Barnum, the legendary showman and entrepreneur, shares his timeless wisdom in The Art of Money Getting; or, Golden Rules for Making Money. Drawing on his vast experience in business, Barnum outlines practical strategies for achieving financial success without compromising integrity. With wit and insight, he emphasizes the importance of perseverance, adaptability, and, most importantly, honesty in the pursuit of wealth. Far from being just a collection of get-rich-quick tips, this book serves as a guide to personal and professional development, teaching readers how to navigate the challenges of life and business with sound principles and a clear mind. A classic work that remains as relevant today as it was in Barnum’s time, this is essential reading for anyone looking to build a lasting fortune.

Essays from twenty-seven leading book editors: “Honest and unflinching accounts from publishing insiders . . . a valuable primer on the field.” —Publishers Weekly Editing is an invisible art in which the very best work goes undetected. Editors strive to create books that are enlightening, seamless, and pleasurable to read, all while giving credit to the author. This makes it all the more difficult to truly understand the range of roles they inhabit while shepherding a project from concept to publication. What Editors Do gathers essays from twenty-seven leading figures in book publishing about their work. Representing both large houses and small, and encompassing trade, textbook, academic, and children’s publishing, the contributors make the case for why editing remains a vital function to writers—and readers—everywhere. Ironically for an industry built on words, there has been a scarcity of written guidance on how to approach the work of editing. Serving as a compendium of professional advice and a portrait of what goes on behind the scenes, this book sheds light on how editors acquire books, what constitutes a strong author-editor relationship, and the editor’s vital role at each stage of the publishing process—a role that extends far beyond marking up the author’s text. This collection treats editing as both art and craft, and also as a career. It explores how editors balance passion against the economic realities of publishing—and shows why, in the face of a rapidly changing publishing landscape, editors are more important than ever. “Authoritative, entertaining, and informative.” —Copyediting

With the rapid and unprecedented global expansion of the art market, new collectors are emerging every day. When buying art, whether for pure enjoyment, for investment or some other motive, few art collectors consider the practical and financial implications of owning and maintaining art, and many do not have a plan for how they might eventually dispose of it. This book, probing a number of resources and incorporating advice from top experts in the field, offers guidance on collection management and care, and serves as an important reference guide for collectors and those charged with managing.

You can go after the job you want…and get it! You can take the job you have…and improve it! You can take any situation you’re in…and make it work for you! Since its release in 1936, How to Win Friends and Influence People has sold more than 30 million copies. Dale Carnegie’s first book is a timeless bestseller, packed with rock-solid advice that has carried thousands of now famous people up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives. As relevant as ever before, Dale Carnegie’s principles endure, and will help you achieve your maximum potential in the complex and competitive modern age. Learn the six ways to make people like you, the twelve ways to win people to your way of thinking, and the nine ways to change people without arousing resentment.

Greg Clark welcomes his readers by asking them to accompany him on a trip to a New Orleans club, where the warmth of the music and the warmth of the audience instill a special feeling of communion, of getting along. Clark s book treats the idea that jazz demands from those who make it as well as those who listen a form of life that substantiates the seemingly impossible American value that is "e pluribus unum." The process of getting along (in communication, in community) is something the great student of culture and rhetoric, Kenneth Burke, spent his life trying to describe. Clark has found that jazz, as an activity and a cultural form, goes a long way toward illustrating that process. Jazz is often described as democratic. Burke s rhetorical and aesthetic ideas explain how this is so. Working with others to address immediate problems they share can align for a time individuals who are otherwise very different. That is what jazz does: it enables people who are different and even in conflict with each other to combine in cooperation toward an end that matters to all of them just now. And this, too, is what civic life in democratic cultures demands. In chapters that deal with such issues as what jazz does and how jazz works, Clark uses examples from jazz history (from Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines to Miles Davis and Bill Evans), but also from contemporary jazz, both recorded and live, e.g., pianist Jonathan Batiste and his Social Music, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington and her collaborative Mosaic Project, or the newly emergent vocalist, Cecile Mclorin Salvant, all of this in the service of making improvisation and ensemble work yield the experience of transcendence that results from intense engagement with jazz as aesthetic form (for players and listeners alike). The resulting book is a study of jazz in the context of American aspirations toward democratic interaction "and" a study of Kenneth Burke s democratic rhetorical theory and practice as essentially aesthetic in function and effect. Marcus Roberts, the much-lionized neoclassical pianist, crafts a Foreword that points to practical ways these ideas can work to improve and inspire both musicians and citizens."