title: Korean reunification

text: Similarly to both Germany and Korea, the separation of North and South Vietnam has also left significant cultural differences that continue today. Furthermore, cultural differences between the two parts of Vietnam had also existed prior to the partition of the country.


title: Korean reunification

text: In 1984, the "Beijing Review" provided the PRC's view on Korean unification: "With regard to the situation on the Korean peninsula, China's position is clear: it is squarely behind the proposal of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea for tripartite (between the two Koreas and the United States) talks to seek a peaceful and independent reunification of Korea in the form of a confederation, free from outside interference. China believes this is the surest way to reduce tension on the peninsula."


title: Korean reunification

text: The PRC's current relationship with North Korea and position on a unified Korea is seen as dependent on a number of issues. A unified Korea could prevent North Korea's nuclear weapons program from destabilizing East Asia as well as the PRC government. The 2010 United States diplomatic cables leak mentioned two unnamed PRC officials telling the Deputy Foreign Minister of South Korea that the younger generation of PRC leaders increasingly believed that Korea should be reunified under South Korean rule, provided it were not hostile to PRC. The report also claimed that senior officials and the general public in the PRC were becoming increasingly frustrated with the North acting like a "spoiled child," following its repeated missile and nuclear tests, which were seen as a gesture of defiance not only to the West, but also to the PRC. The business magazine "Caixin" reported that North Korea accounted for 40% of PRC's foreign aid budget and required 50,000 tonnes of oil per month as a buffer state against Japan, South Korea, and the United States, with whom trade and investment is now worth billions. North Korea is seen in the PRC as expensive and internationally embarrassing to support.


title: Korean reunification

text: However, the collapse of the North Korean regime and unification by Seoul would also present a number of problems for PRC. A sudden and violent collapse might cause a mass exodus of North Koreans fleeing or fighting poverty into PRC, causing a humanitarian crisis that could destabilize northeast PRC. The movement of South Korean and American soldiers into the North could result in their being temporarily or even permanently stationed on PRC's border, seen as a potential threat to PRC sovereignty and an imposition of a PRC containment policy. A unified Korea could also more strongly pursue its territorial disputes with PRC and might inflame nationalism among Koreans in PRC. Some have claimed the existence of contingency plans for PRC intervening in situations of great turmoil in North Korea (with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Northeast Project on the Chinese identity of the Goguryeo kingdom potentially used to justify intervention or even annexation).


title: Korean reunification

text: As relations between North Korea and the Soviet Union warmed, the latter returned to warm public support for Kim Il-Sung's peaceful reunification proposals. Soviet attention in Northeast Asia gradually began to focus on a new plan for "collective security in Asia" first proposed in an "Izvestia" editorial in May 1969 and mentioned specifically by Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev in his address to the International Conference of Communist and Workers' Parties in Moscow the following month:


title: Korean reunification

text: The United States officially supports Korean reunification under a democratic government. Mike Mansfield proposed that Korea be neutralized under a great-power agreement, accompanied by the withdrawal of all foreign troops and the discontinuation of security treaties with the great power guarantors of the North and South.


title: Korean reunification

text: In the 1990s, despite issues surrounding the controversial US-South Korean joint Team Spirit military exercises, the Clinton administration still managed to help turn around the situation regarding peace with North Korea through Jimmy Carter's support. It promised light water reactors in exchange for the availability of North Korea for inspection of its facilities and other concessions. North Korea reacted positively, despite blaming the United States as the original aggressor in the Korean War. There were attempts to normalize relations with Japan as well as the United States with South Korean President Kim Dae-jung in open support. North Korea actually favored the United States military's position on the front lines because it helped prevent an outbreak of war. Eventually, aid and oil were supplied, and even cooperation with South Korean business firms. However, one of the remaining fears was North Korea, with their necessary uranium deposits, having the potential to achieve a high level of nuclear technology.


title: Korean reunification

text: Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, another supporter of Korean unification, proposed a six-party conference to find a way out of the Korean dilemma, composed of the two Koreas and four connected powers (the United States, the Soviet Union, China, and Japan). North Korea denounced the "four plus two" scenario, as it was also known, by claiming Korea would be at the mercy of the great powers and insinuated the reestablishment of Japanese power in Korea. However, North Korea ultimately lacked confidence in getting simultaneous help from China and the Soviet Union.


title: Korean reunification

text: Following a summit meeting in Pyongyang on June 13–15, 2000 between leaders of the two countries, the chairpersons of the Millennium Summit issued a statement welcoming their Joint Declaration as a breakthrough in bringing peace, stability, and reunification to the Korean peninsula. Seven weeks later, a resolution to the same effect was passed by the United Nations General Assembly after being co-sponsored by 150 other nations.


title: Korean reunification

text: A scheduled General Assembly debate on the topic in 2002 was deferred for a year at the request of both nations, and when the subject returned in 2003, it was immediately dropped off the agenda.


title: Korean reunification

text: The issue did not return to the General Assembly until 2007, following a second Inter-Korean summit held in Pyongyang on October 2–4, 2007. These talks were held during one round of the Six-Party Talks in Beijing which committed to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.


title: Korean reunification

text: A unified Korea could have great implications for the balance of power in the region, with South Korea already considered by many a regional power. Reunification would give access to cheap labor and abundant natural resources in the North, which, combined with existing technology and capital in the South, would create large economic and military growth potential. According to a 2009 study by Goldman Sachs, a unified Korea could have an economy larger than that of Japan by 2050. A unified Korean military would have the largest number of military reservists as well as one of the largest numbers of military hackers.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Eckhart von Hochheim ( – ), commonly known as Meister Eckhart, Master Eckhart or Eckehart, original name Johannes Eckhart was a German Catholic theologian, philosopher and mystic, born near Gotha in the Landgraviate of Thuringia (now central Germany) in the Holy Roman Empire.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Eckhart came into prominence during the Avignon Papacy at a time of increased tensions between monastic orders, diocesan clergy, the Franciscan Order, and Eckhart's Dominican Order of Preachers. In later life, he was accused of heresy and brought up before the local Franciscan-led Inquisition, and tried as a heretic by Pope John XXII. He seems to have died before his verdict was received.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: He was well known for his work with pious lay groups such as the Friends of God and was succeeded by his more circumspect disciples John Tauler and Henry Suso who was later beatified. Since the 19th century, he has received renewed attention. He has acquired a status as a great mystic within contemporary popular spirituality, as well as considerable interest from scholars situating him within the medieval scholastic and philosophical tradition.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Eckhart was probably born around 1260 in the village of Tambach, near Gotha, in the Landgraviate of Thuringia, perhaps between 1250 and 1260. It was previously asserted that he was born to a noble family of landowners, but this originated in a misinterpretation of the archives of the period. In reality, little is known about his family and early life. There is no basis for giving him the Christian name of Johannes, which sometimes appears in biographical sketches: his Christian name was Eckhart; his surname was von Hochheim.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Probably around 1278 Eckhart joined the Dominican convent at Erfurt, when he was about eighteen. It is assumed he studied at Cologne before 1280. He may have also studied at the University of Paris, either before or after his time in Cologne.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: The first solid evidence we have for his life is when on 18 April 1294, as a "baccalaureus" (lecturer) on the "Sentences" of Peter Lombard, a post to which he had presumably been appointed in 1293, he preached the Easter Sermon (the "Sermo Paschalis") at the Dominican convent of St. Jacques in Paris. In late 1294, Eckhart was made Prior at Erfurt and Dominican Provincial of Thuringia. His earliest vernacular work, "Reden der Unterweisung" ("The Talks of Instructions"/"Counsels on Discernment"), a series of talks delivered to Dominican novices, dates from this time (c. 1295–1298). In 1302, he was sent to Paris to take up the external Dominican chair of theology. He remained there until 1303. The short "Parisian Questions" date from this time.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: In late 1303 Eckhart returned to Erfurt, and was given the position of Provincial superior for Saxony, a province which reached at that time from the Netherlands to Livonia. He therefore had responsibility for forty-seven convents in this region. Complaints made against him and the Provincial superior of Teutonia at the Dominican general chapter held in Paris in 1306, concerning irregularities among the ternaries, must have been trivial, because the general, Aymeric of Piacenza, appointed him in the following year his vicar-general for Bohemia with full power to set the demoralized monasteries there in order. Eckhart was Provincial for Saxony until 1311, during which time he founded three convents for women there.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: On 14 May 1311 Eckhart was appointed by the general chapter held at Naples as teacher at Paris. To be invited back to Paris for a second stint as "magister" was a rare privilege, previously granted only to Thomas Aquinas. Eckhart stayed in Paris for two academic years, until the summer of 1313, living in the same house as William of Paris.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Then follows a long period of which it is known only that he spent part of the time at Strasbourg. It is unclear what specific office he held there: he seems chiefly to have been concerned with spiritual direction and with preaching in convents of Dominicans.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: A passage in a chronicle of the year 1320, extant in manuscript (cf. , i. 352–399), speaks of a prior Eckhart at Frankfurt who was suspected of heresy, and some historians have linked this to Meister Eckhart.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: In late 1323 or early 1324, Eckhart left Strasbourg for the Dominican house at Cologne. It is not clear exactly what he did there, though part of his time may have been spent teaching at the prestigious "Studium" in the city. Eckhart also continued to preach, addressing his sermons during a time of disarray among the clergy and monastic orders, rapid growth of numerous pious lay groups, and the Inquisition's continuing concerns over heretical movements throughout Europe.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: It appears that some of the Dominican authorities already had concerns about Eckhart's teaching. The Dominican General Chapter held in Venice in the spring of 1325 had spoken out against "friars in Teutonia who say things in their sermons that can easily lead simple and uneducated people into error". This concern (or perhaps concerns held by the archbishop of Cologne, Henry of Virneburg) may have been why Nicholas of Strasbourg, to whom the Pope had given the temporary charge of the Dominican convents in Germany in 1325, conducted an investigation into Eckhart's orthodoxy. Nicholas presented a list of suspect passages from the "Book of Consolation" to Eckhart, who responded sometime between August 1325 and January 1326 with the treatise "Requisitus", now lost, which convinced his immediate superiors of his orthodoxy. Despite this assurance, however, the archbishop in 1326 ordered an inquisitorial trial. At this point Eckhart issued a "Vindicatory Document", providing chapter and verse of what he had been taught.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Throughout the difficult months of late 1326, Eckhart had the full support of the local Dominican authorities, as evident in Nicholas of Strasbourg's three official protests against the actions of the inquisitors in January 1327. On 13 February 1327, before the archbishop's inquisitors pronounced their sentence on Eckhart, Eckhart preached a sermon in the Dominican church at Cologne, and then had his secretary read out a public protestation of his innocence. He stated in his protest that he had always detested everything wrong, and should anything of the kind be found in his writings, he now retracts. Eckhart himself translated the text into German, so that his audience, the vernacular public, could understand it. The verdict then seems to have gone against Eckhart. Eckhart denied competence and authority to the inquisitors and the archbishop, and appealed to the Pope against the verdict. He then, in the spring of 1327, set off for Avignon.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: In Avignon, Pope John XXII seems to have set up two tribunals to inquire into the case, one of theologians and the other of cardinals. Evidence of this process is thin. However, it is known that the commissions reduced the 150 suspect articles down to 28; the document known as the "Votum Avenionense" gives, in scholastic fashion, the twenty-eight articles, Eckhart's defence of each, and the rebuttal of the commissioners. On 30 April 1328, the pope wrote to Archbishop Henry of Virneburg that the case against Eckhart was moving ahead, but added that Eckhart had already died (modern scholarship suggests he may have died on 28 January 1328). The papal commission eventually confirmed (albeit in modified form) the decision of the Cologne commission against Eckhart.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Pope John XXII issued a bull ("In agro dominico"), 27 March 1329, in which a series of statements from Eckhart is characterized as heretical, another as suspected of heresy. At the close, it is stated that Eckhart recanted before his death everything which he had falsely taught, by subjecting himself and his writing to the decision of the Apostolic See. It is possible that the Pope's unusual decision to issue the bull, despite the death of Eckhart (and the fact that Eckhart was not being personally condemned as a heretic), was due to the pope's fear of the growing problem of mystical heresy, and pressure from his ally Henry of Virneburg to bring the case to a definite conclusion.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Eckhart's status in the contemporary Catholic Church has been uncertain. The Dominican Order pressed in the last decade of the 20th century for his full rehabilitation and confirmation of his theological orthodoxy. Pope John Paul II voiced favorable opinion on this initiative, even going as far as quoting from Eckhart's writings, but the outcome was confined to the corridors of the Vatican. In the spring of 2010, it was revealed that there had been a response from the Vatican in a letter dated 1992. Timothy Radcliffe, then Master of the Dominicans and recipient of the letter, summarized the contents as follows:


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Professor Winfried Trusen of Würzburg, a correspondent of Radcliffe, wrote in a defence of Eckhart to Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), stating:


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Eckhart was schooled in medieval scholasticism and was well-acquainted with Aristotelianism and Augustinianism. The Neo-Platonism of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite asserted a great influence on him, as reflected in his notions on the Gottheit beyond the God who can be named.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Although he was an accomplished academic theologian, Eckhart's best-remembered works are his highly unusual sermons in the vernacular. Eckhart as a preaching friar attempted to guide his flock, as well as monks and nuns under his jurisdiction, with practical sermons on spiritual/psychological transformation and New Testament metaphorical content related to the creative power inherent in disinterest (dispassion or detachment).


title: Meister Eckhart

text: The central theme of Eckhart's German sermons is the presence of God in the individual soul, and the dignity of the soul of the just man. Although he elaborated on this theme, he rarely departed from it. In one sermon, Eckhart gives the following summary of his message:


title: Meister Eckhart

text: As Eckhart said in his trial defence, his sermons were meant to inspire in listeners the desire above all to do some good. In this, he frequently used unusual language or seemed to stray from the path of orthodoxy, which made him suspect to the Church during the tense years of the Avignon Papacy.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: In Eckhart's vision, God is primarily fecund. Out of overabundance of love the fertile God gives birth to the Son, the Word in all of us. Clearly, this is rooted in the Neoplatonic notion of "ebullience; boiling over" of the One that cannot hold back its abundance of Being. Eckhart had imagined the creation not as a "compulsory" overflowing (a metaphor based on a common hydrodynamic picture), but as the free act of will of the triune nature of Deity (refer Trinitarianism).


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Another bold assertion is Eckhart's distinction between God and Godhead ("Gottheit" in German, meaning Godhood or Godhead, state of being God). These notions had been present in Pseudo-Dionysius's writings and John the Scot's "De divisione naturae", but Eckhart, with characteristic vigor and audacity, reshaped the germinal metaphors into profound images of polarity between the Unmanifest and Manifest Absolute.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: John Orme Mills notes that Eckhart did not "leave us a guide to the spiritual life like St Bonaventure’s Itinerarium – the Journey of the Soul," but that his ideas on this have to be condensed from his "couple of very short books on suffering and detachment" and sermons. According to Mills, Eckhart's comments on prayer are only about contemplative prayer and "detachment."


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Accordng to Reiner Schürmann, four stages can be discerned in Eckhart's understanding mystical development: dissimilarity, similarity, identity, breakthrough.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Eckhart was one of the most influential 13th-century Christian Neoplatonists in his day, and remained widely read in the later Middle Ages. Some early twentieth-century writers believed that Eckhart's work was forgotten by his fellow Dominicans soon after his death. In 1960, however, a manuscript (""in agro dominico"") was discovered containing six hundred excerpts from Eckhart, clearly deriving from an original made in the Cologne Dominican convent "after" the promulgation of the bull condemning Eckhart's writings, as notations from the bull are inserted into the manuscript. The manuscript came into the possession of the Carthusians in Basel, demonstrating that some Dominicans and Carthusians had continued to read Eckhart's work.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: It is also clear that Nicholas of Cusa, Archbishop of Cologne in the 1430s and 1440s, engaged in extensive study of Eckhart. He assembled, and carefully annotated, a surviving collection of Eckhart's Latin works. As Eckhart was the only medieval theologian tried before the Inquisition as a heretic, the subsequent (1329) condemnation of excerpts from his works cast a shadow over his reputation for some, but followers of Eckhart in the lay group Friends of God existed in communities across the region and carried on his ideas under the leadership of such priests as John Tauler and Henry Suso.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Eckhart is considered by some to have been the inspirational "layman" referred to in Johannes Tauler's and Rulman Merswin's later writings in Strasbourg where he is known to have spent time (although it is doubtful that he authored the simplistic "Book of the Nine Rocks" published by Merswin and attributed to The Friend of God from the Oberland). On the other hand, most scholars consider The Friend of God from the Oberland to be a pure fiction invented by Merswin to hide his authorship because of the intimidating tactics of the Inquisition at the time.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: It has been suspected that his practical communication of the mystical path is behind the influential 14th-century "anonymous" "Theologia Germanica", which was disseminated after his disappearance. According to the medieval introduction of the document, its author was an unnamed member of the Teutonic Order of Knights living in Frankfurt.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: The lack of "imprimatur" from the Church and anonymity of the author of the "Theologia Germanica" did not lessen its influence for the next two centuries – including Martin Luther at the peak of public and clerical resistance to Catholic indulgences – and was viewed by some historians of the early 20th century as pivotal in provoking Luther's actions and the subsequent Protestant Reformation.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: The following quote from the "Theologia Germanica" depicts the conflict between worldly and ecclesiastical affairs:


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Eckhart was largely forgotten from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, barring occasional interest from thinkers such as Angelus Silesius (1627–1677). For centuries, his writings were known only from a number of sermons found in old editions of Johann Tauler's sermons, published by Kachelouen (Leipzig, 1498) and by Adam Petri (Basel, 1521 and 1522).


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Interest in Eckhart's works was revived in the early nineteenth century, especially by German Romantics and Idealist philosophers. Franz Pfeiffer's publication in 1857 of Eckhart's German sermons and treatises added greatly to this interest.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: A second important figure in the later nineteenth century for the recovery of Eckhart's works was Heinrich Seuse Denifle, who was the first to recover Eckhart's Latin works, from 1886 onwards.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, much Catholic interest in Eckhart was concerned with the consistency of his thought in relation to Neoscholastic thought – in other words, to see whether Eckhart's thought could be seen to be essentially in conformity with orthodoxy as represented by his fellow Dominican Thomas Aquinas.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Since the mid-nineteenth century scholars have questioned which of the many pieces attributed to Eckhart should be considered genuine, and whether greater weight should be given to works written in the vernacular, or Latin. Although the vernacular works survive today in over 200 manuscripts, the Latin writings are found only in a handful of manuscripts. Denifle and others have proposed that the Latin treatises, which Eckhart prepared for publication very carefully, were essential to a full understanding of Eckhart.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: In 1923, Eckhart's "Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises and Defense" (also known as the "Rechtsfertigung", or "Vindicatory Document") was re-published. The "Defense" recorded Eckhart's responses against two of the Inquisitional proceedings brought against him at Cologne, and details of the circumstances of Eckhart's trial. The excerpts in the "Defense" from vernacular sermons and treatises described by Eckhart as his own, served to authenticate a number of the vernacular works. Although questions remain about the authenticity of some vernacular works, there is no dispute about the genuine character of the Latin texts presented in the critical edition.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Since the 1960s debate has been going on in Germany whether Eckhart should be called a "mystic". The philosopher Karl Albert had already argued that Eckhart had to be placed in the tradition of philosophical mysticism of Parmenides, Plato, Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus and other neo-Platonistic thinkers. Heribert Fischer argued in the 1960s that Eckhart was a mediaeval theologian.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Kurt Flasch, a member of the so-called Bochum-school of mediaeval philosophy, strongly reacted against the influence of New Age mysticism and "all kinds of emotional subjective mysticism", arguing for the need to free Eckhart from "the Mystical Flood". He sees Eckhart strictly as a philosopher. Flasch argues that the opposition between "mystic" and "scholastic" is not relevant because this mysticism (in Eckhart's context) is penetrated by the spirit of the university, in which it occurred.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: According to Hackett, Eckhart is to be understood as an "original hermeneutical thinker in the Latin tradition". To understand Eckhart, he has to be properly placed within the western philosophical tradition of which he was a part.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Josiah Royce, an objective idealist, saw Eckhart as a representative example of 13th and 14th century Catholic mystics "on the verge of pronounced heresy" but without original philosophical opinions. Royce attributes Eckhart's reputation for originality to the fact that he translated scholastic philosophy from Latin into German, and that Eckhart wrote about his speculations in German instead of Latin. Eckhart generally followed Thomas Aquinas's doctrine of the Trinity, but Eckhart exaggerated the scholastic distinction between the divine essence and the divine persons. The very heart of Eckhart's speculative mysticism, according to Royce, is that if, through what is called in Christian terminology the procession of the Son, the divine omniscience gets a complete expression in eternal terms, still there is even at the centre of this omniscience the necessary mystery of the divine essence itself, which neither generates nor is generated, and which is yet the source and fountain of all the divine. The Trinity is, for Eckhart, the revealed God and the mysterious origin of the Trinity is the Godhead, the absolute God.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Matthew Fox (born 1940) is an American theologian. Formerly a priest and a member of the Dominican Order within the Roman Catholic Church, Fox was an early and influential exponent of a movement that came to be known as Creation Spirituality. The movement draws inspiration from the wisdom traditions of Christian scriptures and from the philosophies of such medieval Catholic visionaries as Hildegard of Bingen, Thomas Aquinas, Saint Francis of Assisi, Julian of Norwich, Dante Alighieri, Meister Eckhart and Nicholas of Cusa, and others. Fox has written a number of articles on Eckhart and a book titled "Breakthrough: Meister Eckhart's Creation Spirituality in New Translation".


title: Meister Eckhart

text: In "Conversation on a Country Path," Martin Heidegger develops his concept of Gelassenheit, or releasement, from Meister Eckhart. Ian Moore argues "that Heidegger consulted Eckhart again and again throughout his career to develop or support his own thought.".


title: Meister Eckhart

text: The French philosopher Jacques Derrida distinguishes Eckhart's Negative Theology from his own concept of "différance" although John D. Caputo in his influential "The Tears and Prayers of Jacques Derrida" emphasises the importance of that tradition for this thought.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Meister Eckhart has become one of the timeless heroes of modern spirituality, which, to historian of religion Wouter Hanegraaff, thrives on an all-inclusive syncretism. This syncretism started with the colonisation of Asia, and the search of similarities between Eastern and Western religions. Western monotheism was projected onto Eastern religiosity by Western orientalists, trying to accommodate Eastern religiosity to a Western understanding, whereafter Asian intellectuals used these projections as a starting point to propose the superiority of those Eastern religions. Early on, the figure of Meister Eckhart has played a role in these developments and exchanges.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Renewed academic attention to Eckhart has attracted favorable attention to his work from contemporary non-Christian mystics. Eckhart's most famous single quote, "The Eye with which I see God is the same Eye with which God sees me", is commonly cited by thinkers within neopaganism and ultimatist Buddhism as a point of contact between these traditions and Christian mysticism.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: The first European translation of Upanishads appeared in two parts in 1801 and 1802. The 19th-century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer was influenced by the early translations of the Upanishads, which he called "the consolation of my life". Schopenhauer compared Eckhart's views to the teachings of Indian, Christian and Islamic mystics and ascetics:


title: Meister Eckhart

text: A major force in the mutual influence of Eastern and Western ideas and religiosity was the Theosophical Society, which also incorporated Eckhart in its notion of Theosophy. It searched for ancient wisdom in the East, spreading Eastern religious ideas in the West. One of its salient features was the belief in "Masters of Wisdom", "beings, human or once human, who have transcended the normal frontiers of knowledge, and who make their wisdom available to others". The Theosophical Society also spread Western ideas in the East, aiding a modernisation of Eastern traditions, and contributing to a growing nationalism in the Asian colonies.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: The Theosophical Society had a major influence on Hindu reform movements. A major proponent of this "neo-Hinduism", also called "neo-Vedanta", was Vivekananda (1863–1902) who popularised his modernised interpretation of Advaita Vedanta in the 19th and early 20th century in both India and the West, emphasising "anubhava" ("personal experience") over scriptural authority. Vivekananda's teachings have been compared to Eckhart's teachings.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: In the 20th century, Eckhart's thoughts were also compared to Shankara's Advaita Vedanta by Rudolf Otto in his "Mysticism East and West". According to Richard King, the aim of this work was to redeem Eckhart's mysticism in Protestant circles, attempting "to establish the superiority of the German mysticism of Eckhart over the Indian mysticism of Sankara".


title: Meister Eckhart

text: The Theosophical Society also had a major influence on Buddhist modernism, and the spread of this modernised Buddhism in the West. Along with H. S. Olcott and Anagarika Dharmapala, Helena P. Blavatsky was instrumental in the Western transmission and revival of Theravada Buddhism.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: In 1891, Karl Eugen Neumann, who translated large parts of the Tripitaka, found parallels between Eckhart and Buddhism, which he published in "Zwei buddhistische Suttas und ein Traktat Meister Eckharts" ("Two Buddhist Suttas and a treatise of Meister Eckhart"). D.T. Suzuki, who joined the Theosophical Society Adyar and was an active Theosophist, discerned parallels between Eckhart's teachings and Zen Buddhism in his "Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist", drawing similarities between Eckhart's "pure nothingness" ("ein bloss nicht") and "sunyata". Shizuteru Ueda, a third generation Kyoto School philosopher and scholar in medieval philosophy showed similarities between Eckhart's soteriology and Zen Buddhism in an article.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Reiner Schürmann , a professor of philosophy, while agreeing with Daisetz T. Suzuki that there exist certain similarities between Zen Buddhism and Meister Eckhart's teaching, also disputed Suzuki's contention that the ideas expounded in Eckhart's sermons closely approach Buddhist thought, "so closely indeed, that one could stamp them almost definitely as coming out of Buddhist speculations". Schurmann's several clarifications included:


title: Meister Eckhart

text: The notable humanistic psychoanalyst and philosopher Erich Fromm was another scholar who brought renewed attention in the West to Eckhart's writings, drawing upon many of the latter's themes in his large corpus of work. Eckhart was a significant influence in developing United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld's conception of spiritual growth through selfless service to humanity, as detailed in his book of contemplations called "Vägmärken" ("Markings").


title: Meister Eckhart

text: In "Aion, Researches into the Phenomenology of Self" Carl G. Jung cites Eckhart approvingly in his discussion of Christ as a symbol of the archetypal self. Jung sees Eckhart as a Christian Gnostic:


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Meister Eckhart's theology knows a "Godhead" of which no qualities, except unity and being, can be predicated; it "is becoming," it is not yet Lord of itself, and it represents an absolute coincidence of opposites: "But its simple nature is of forms formless; of becoming becomingless; of beings beingless; of things thingless," etc. Union of opposites is equivalent to unconsciousness, so far as human logic goes, for consciousness presupposes a differentiation into subject and object and a relation between them. (Page 193.)


title: Meister Eckhart

text: As the Godhead is essentially unconscious, so too is the man who lives in God. In his sermon on "The Poor in Spirit" (Matt. 5 : 3), the Meister says: "The man who has this poverty has everything he was when he lived not in any wise, neither in himself, nor in truth, nor in God. He is so quit and empty of all knowing that no knowledge of God is alive in him; for while he stood in the eternal nature of god, there lived in him not another: what lived there was himself. And so we say this man is as empty of his own knowledge as he was when he was not anything; he lets God work with what he will, and he stands empty as when he came from God." Therefore he should love God in the following way: "Love him as he is; a not-God, a not-spirit, a not-person, a not-image; as a sheer, pure, clear One, which he is, sundered from all secondness; and in this One let us sink eternally, from nothing to nothing. So help us God. Amen." (Page 193.)


title: Meister Eckhart

text: The world-embracing spirit of Meister Eckhart knew, without discursive knowledge, the primordial mystical experience of India as well as of the Gnostics, and was itself the finest flower on the tree of the "Free Spirit" that flourished at the beginning of the eleventh century. Well might the writings of this Master be buried for six hundred years, for "his time was not yet come." Only in the nineteenth century did he find a public at all capable of appreciating the grandeur of his mind. (Page 194.)


title: Meister Eckhart

text: In "", by Dimitris Lyacos the same quote, attributed to Eckhart, appears in a slightly different wording:


title: Meister Eckhart

text: In the book "The Gargoyle" by Andrew Davidson, Eckhart is mentioned in a story Marianne Engel recounts to the (unnamed) protagonist about her days in the Engelthal Monastery:


title: Meister Eckhart

text: The third movement of John Adams's Harmonielehre symphony (1985) is titled "Meister Eckhart and Quackie", which imagines the mystic floating through space with the composer's daughter Emily (nicknamed Quackie) on his back whispering secrets of grace in his ear.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Eckhart Tolle quotes Meister Eckhart in "The Power of Now" as saying "Time is what keeps the light from reaching us".


title: Meister Eckhart

text: The publication of the modern critical edition of Eckhart's German and Latin works began in 1936 and was completed in April 2022.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: One difficulty with Eckhart's Latin writings is that they clearly represent only a small portion of what he planned to write. Eckhart describes his plans to write a vast "Opus Tripartitum" ("Three-Part Work"). Unfortunately, all that exists today of the first part, the "Work of Propositions", is the Prologue illustrating the first proposition (with Eckhart intending the first part alone to consist of over one thousand propositions). The second part, called the "Work of Questions", no longer exists. The third part, the "Work of Commentaries", is the major surviving Latin work by Eckhart, consisting of a Prologue, six commentaries, and fifty-six sermons. It used to be thought that this work was begun while Eckhart was in Paris between 1311 and 1313; however, recent manuscript discoveries mean that much of what survives must be dated to before 1310.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: Questions concerning the authenticity of the Middle High German texts attributed to Eckhart are much greater than for the Latin texts. The problems involve not only whether a particular sermon or treatise is to be judged authentic or pseudonymous, but also, given the large number of manuscripts and the fragmentary condition of many of them, whether it is even possible to establish the text for some of the pieces accepted as genuine. Eckhart's sermons are versions written down by others from memory or from notes, meaning that the possibility for error was much greater than for the carefully written Latin treatises.


title: Meister Eckhart

text: The critical edition of Eckhart's works traditionally accepted 86 sermons as genuine, based on the research done by its editor Josef Quint (1898–1976) during the 20th century. Of these, "Sermons" 1–16b are proved authentic by direct citation in the "Defense". "Sermons" 17–24 have such close textual affinities with Latin sermons recognised as genuine that they are accepted. "Sermons" 25–86 are harder to verify, and judgements have been made on the basis of style and content. Georg Steer took over the editorship in 1983. Between 2003 and 2016, the critical edition under Georg Steer added another 30 vernacular sermons (Nos. 87 to 117) in volumes 4.1 and 4.2. Because six sermons exist in an A and B version (5a-b, 13-13a, 16a-b, 20a-b, 36a-b und 54a-b) the final total of vernacular sermons is 123 (numbered consecutively from 1 to 117).


title: Meister Eckhart

text: When Franz Pfeiffer published his edition of Eckhart's works in 1857, he included seventeen vernacular treatises he considered to be written by Eckhart. Modern scholarship is much more cautious, however, and the critical edition accepts only four of Eckhart's vernacular treatises as genuine:


title: Ophelia (2018 film)

text: Ophelia is a 2018 historical romantic drama film directed by Claire McCarthy and written by Semi Chellas about the character of the same name from William Shakespeare's play "Hamlet". Based on the novel by Lisa Klein, the film follows the story of "Hamlet" from Ophelia's perspective. It stars Daisy Ridley in the title role, alongside Naomi Watts, Clive Owen, George MacKay, Tom Felton and Devon Terrell. The dialogue is in modern English.


title: Ophelia (2018 film)

text: The film premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, and had a limited theatrical run on June 28, 2019, followed by a VOD release on July 2, 2019 by IFC Films. Critical reception was mixed, though Ridley's performance received acclaim.


title: Ophelia (2018 film)

text: In the castle of Elsinore, Denmark, the wilful and free-spirited Ophelia is Queen Gertrude's favourite lady-in-waiting, though she is ridiculed by the other ladies for her lack of nobility. Her father, Polonius, serves as chief councillor to King Hamlet.


title: Ophelia (2018 film)

text: Upon his return from Wittenberg, Prince Hamlet soon begins courting Ophelia, but their blossoming romance is cut short when Hamlet returns to Wittenberg to continue his studies. At the same time, Hamlet's uncle Claudius begins to seduce Gertrude.


title: Ophelia (2018 film)

text: Later, Gertrude charges Ophelia with retrieving a tonic from a healer named Mechtild who lives deep in the forest. While preparing the queen's chambers for the night, she witnesses the king and queen in a heated argument. Ophelia pursues the distraught Gertrude up to the castle parapets where she encounters what appears to be a ghost.


title: Ophelia (2018 film)

text: The next day the king is found dead, presumably from a venomous snake bite. Claudius takes the throne as his successor and marries Gertrude. Hamlet returns to Elsinore in a rage, having heard the news from Polonius, and begins to suspect foul play. He resumes his romance with Ophelia, which the court begins to notice. Ophelia's brother Laertes cautions her to be wary of his advances, before leaving for France. At the advice of his trusted friend, Horatio, Ophelia meets Hamlet at the parapets where he confides in her his suspicions about his mother's infidelity.


title: Ophelia (2018 film)

text: The next day while on another errand for the queen, Ophelia encounters the same spectral figure from the parapets. Mechtild is revealed to be not only Gertrude's twin sister but also Claudius' former lover, who brought her to ruin after he accused her of witchcraft when she miscarried their illegitimate son. Mechtild was able to escape persecution by faking her death by drinking a special poison. Later on, Hamlet meets Ophelia in the chapel and the couple marry in secret.


title: Ophelia (2018 film)

text: While attending to the queen early the next morning, Ophelia discovers the spectral figure that she encountered earlier is actually Claudius. She finds Mechtild's poison in his cloak and realises he was responsible for King Hamlet's death. When he learns of their secret marriage, Claudius decides to use her to spy on Hamlet. Ophelia warns him of her discovery and he tells her to leave Elsinore for a convent where she'll be safe from Claudius. Polonius deduces that Hamlet is mad, but Claudius isn't convinced and instructs him to have Ophelia married off.


title: Ophelia (2018 film)

text: That night, Hamlet enlists a troupe of actors to perform a spectacle that depicts his father's murder. Claudius bursts into a rage, confirming Hamlet's suspicions. Gertrude accuses Ophelia of turning Hamlet against her and dismisses her.


title: Ophelia (2018 film)

text: Polonius goes to plead with Gertrude on his daughter's behalf but he is killed by Hamlet who mistook him for Claudius. Ophelia is left further devastated when Horatio tells her that Hamlet has been banished to England along with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.


title: Ophelia (2018 film)

text: Laertes returns from France demanding justice for his father's death. While being prepared for her wedding, Ophelia gets into a fight with one of the queen's ladies who tells her that Claudius ordered Hamlet's murder, but her hopes are suddenly lifted when Horatio tells her that he is still alive. While attempting to escape the castle she is cornered by Claudius. Ophelia calls him out for his mistreatment of Mechtild and he has her locked up, but she escapes and feigns madness. During her act, she tells Horatio to take her body from the grave. Claudius orders her to be arrested but Gertrude shows her mercy, believing her to be truly insane. The guards pursue her to the lake where she drinks Mechtild's poison and seemingly drowns.


title: Ophelia (2018 film)

text: Horatio has seen through her request and recovers her body from the grave just as she wakes up, but she is weakened from consuming too much of the poison. While accompanying her through the forest, they come across Norwegian soldiers on their way to Elsinore. Horatio wishes her well before he leaves to warn the court while Ophelia seeks out Mechtild for an antidote.


title: Ophelia (2018 film)

text: When confronted about her role in the king's murder, Mechtild explains that while she had no part in it she admits she couldn't deny Claudius as she still harboured feelings for him, but agrees that he should pay for his crimes. While Ophelia rests, Mechtild goes to offer her help to the invading Norwegians.


title: Ophelia (2018 film)

text: Ophelia awakes to find a stunned and remorseful Gertrude, who tells her that Laertes has challenged Hamlet to a duel. Ophelia forgives her, and with Gertrude's help she is able to sneak back into the castle unrecognised.


title: Ophelia (2018 film)

text: Hamlet is overjoyed to see his beloved is alive and well. Ophelia pleads with him to leave with her but he is still consumed by the desire for vengeance, and promises he will follow her to the convent. Ophelia sadly bids him goodbye and leaves Elsinore for good. Both Hamlet and Laertes are killed when they are wounded by his poisoned sword.


title: Ophelia (2018 film)

text: Enraged and grief-stricken, Gertrude grabs Hamlet's sword and kills Claudius, just as the Norwegians storm the castle, accompanied by Mechtild. Gertrude poisons herself with Claudius' venom and she dies in her sister's arms.


title: Ophelia (2018 film)

text: On May 4, 2016, it was announced that Daisy Ridley and Naomi Watts would star in the drama film "Ophelia" based on the novel by Lisa Klein, which was in turn based on the character of same name by William Shakespeare from his play "Hamlet". The film would be directed by Claire McCarthy and the script written by Semi Chellas. Covert Media would finance the film, while Daniel Bobker and Ehren Kruger would produce the film along with Sarah Curtis. Bert Marcus also executive produced the film.


title: Ophelia (2018 film)

text: Filming began in April 2017, with a first look image released in May. After three months, principal production wrapped on July 6, 2017. Composer Steven Price signed on to write the musical score.


title: Ophelia (2018 film)

text: It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2018. In February 2019, IFC Films acquired the US distribution rights to the film. It was released in theaters on June 28, 2019. Blue Finch Film later acquired the UK distribution rights on August 15, 2019, a month after its US release, and released it on November 22, 2019.


title: Ophelia (2018 film)

text: The film received mixed reviews from critics, praising its production design, direction, and acting (mostly that of Ridley and Watts), but criticizing the screenplay. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews. The site's critics consensus reads: "Flawed yet intriguing, "Ophelia" uses "Hamlet" as the starting point for a noble attempt to offer a misunderstood character long-overdue agency." Metacritic gave it a score of 60 based on 22 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Ophelia (2018 film)

text: Additional reviews cited that the film is "moving, intoxicating, haunting: the most visually pleasurable film so far this year," and that it's "real entertainment", as "Daisy Ridley does first-rate work in the title role." Other publications also praised Ridley citing that "Daisy Ridley may have been born to play these types of roles because Ophelia is strong and powerful, just like Rey," and she gives a "beautiful performance". "Rotund Reviews" states that they "can’t praise this film enough and highly recommends checking it out." "Film Frenzy" states that the film "offers an imaginative retelling of an acknowledged masterpiece from an alternate POV" and it's "definitely worth seeing and admiring. Flixist also said that the film is "compelling" and "visually striking" while the "score was one of [his] favourite parts of the film: compelling, forceful, unique." RogerEbert.com praised the film, stating that it demonstrates "courage, intelligence, integrity, and agency." The Wrap agrees that it is a "lush, intelligent adaptation".


title: Miniseries

text: A miniseries or mini-series is a television series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. "Limited series" is another more recent US term which is sometimes used interchangeably. , the popularity of miniseries format has increased in both streaming services and broadcast television.


title: Miniseries

text: The term "serial" is used in the United Kingdom and in other Commonwealth nations to describe a show that has an ongoing narrative plotline, while "series" is used for a set of episodes in a similar way that "season" is used in North America.


title: Miniseries

text: A miniseries is distinguished from an ongoing television series; the latter does not usually have a predetermined number of episodes and may continue for several years. Before the term was coined in the US in the early 1970s, the ongoing episodic form was always called a "serial", just as a novel appearing in episodes in successive editions of magazines or newspapers is called a serial. In Britain, miniseries are often still referred to as serials or series.


title: Miniseries

text: Several commentators have offered more precise definitions of the term. In "Halliwell's Television Companion" (1987), Leslie Halliwell and Philip Purser suggested that miniseries tend to "appear in four to six episodes of various lengths", while Stuart Cunningham in "Textual Innovation in the Australian Historical Mini-series" (1989) defined a miniseries as "a limited run program of more than two and less than the 13-part season or half season block associated with serial or series programming". With the proliferation of the format in the 1980s and 90s, television films broadcast over even two or three nights were commonly referred to as miniseries in the US.


title: Miniseries

text: In "Television: A History" (1985), Francis Wheen points out a difference in character development between the two: "Both soap operas and primetime series cannot afford to allow their leading characters to develop, since the shows are made with the intention of running indefinitely. In a miniseries on the other hand, there is a clearly defined beginning, middle, and end (as in a conventional play or novel), enabling characters to change, mature, or die as the serial proceeds".


title: Miniseries

text: In 2015, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences changed its guidelines on how Emmy nominees are classified, with shows with a limited run all referred to as "limited series" instead of "miniseries". This was a reversion to 1974, when the category was named "outstanding limited series". It had been changed to "outstanding miniseries" in 1986. Miniseries were put in the same category as made-for-television films from 2011 to 2014 before being given separate categories again.


title: Miniseries

text: The "Collins English Dictionary" (online, as of 2021, UK) defines a miniseries as "a television programme in several parts that is shown on consecutive days or weeks for a short period; while "Webster's New World College Dictionary"'s (4th ed., 2010, US) definition is "a TV drama or docudrama broadcast serially in a limited number of episodes".


title: Miniseries

text: In popular usage, by around 2020, the boundaries between miniseries and limited series have become somewhat blurred; the format has been described as a series with "a self-contained narrative – whether three or 12 episodes long".


title: Miniseries

text: The British television "serial" is rooted in dramatic radio productions developed between the First and the Second World Wars. In the 1920s the BBC pioneered dramatic readings of books. In 1925 it broadcast "A Christmas Carol", which became a holiday favourite. Later, John Reith, wanting to use radio waves to "part the clouds of ignorance", came up with the idea of a "classic serial", based on a "classical" literary text.


title: Miniseries

text: In 1939 the BBC adapted the romantic novel "The Prisoner of Zenda" for radio broadcast. Its adapter, Jack Inglis, compressed several characters into one and simplified the plotline. The production struck a chord with listeners and served as a prototype for serials that followed it.


title: Miniseries

text: Post-war BBC Television picked up the classic radio serial tradition by broadcasting "The Warden" by Anthony Trollope over six-episodes in 1951. "Pride and Prejudice" was serialised in 1952, "Jane Eyre" in 1955. In 1953 the BBC broadcast the first serial written specifically for television: the six-part "The Quatermass Experiment". Its success paved the way for two more six-part serials: "Quatermass II" in 1955 and "Quatermass and the Pit" in 1958. In November 1960 the BBC televised a thirteen-episode adaptation of Charles Dickens's "Barnaby Rudge". In December of that year it broadcast a four-episode dramatisation of Jane Austen's "Persuasion".


title: Miniseries

text: To compete with commercial television, BBC launched BBC2 in 1964. It had a new time slot allocated for classic serial adaptations on Saturday evenings. The late-night broadcast allowed for more risky and sophisticated choices and for longer episodes. In 1967 "The Forsyte Saga" was broadcast in 26 50-minute episodes. Following its success in Britain, the series was shown in the United States on public television and broadcast all over the world, and became the first BBC television series to be sold to the Soviet Union.


title: Miniseries

text: Anthology series dominated American dramatic programming during the Golden Age of Television, when "every night was opening night; one never knew when a flick of the knob would spark the birth of great theatrical literature". A different story and a different set of characters were presented in each episode. Very rarely the stories were split into several episodes, like 1955 "Mr. Lincoln" from Omnibus series, which was presented in two parts, or 1959 adaptation of "For Whom the Bell Tolls" from "Playhouse 90" series, which was initially planned by the director John Frankenheimer to consist of three parts, but ultimately was broadcast as two 90-minute installments. The high cost and technical difficulties of staging a new play every week, which would cost as much as—or more than—an episode of a filmed television series, led to the demise of anthology programming by the end of the 1950s. The void was filled with less expensive series like "Gunsmoke" or "Wagon Train", which featured the same characters every week and had higher potential for lucrative rebroadcast and syndication rights. It was the American success in 1969–1970 of the British 26-episode serial "The Forsyte Saga" (1967) that made TV executives realize that finite multi-episode stories based on novels could be popular and could provide a boost to weekly viewing figures.


title: Miniseries

text: The form began in earnest in the spring of 1974 with the CBC's eight-part serial "The National Dream", based on Pierre Berton's nonfiction book of the same name about the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and ABC's two-part "QB VII", based on the novel by Leon Uris. Following these initial forays, broadcasters used miniseries to bring other books to the screen.


title: Miniseries

text: "Rich Man, Poor Man", based on the novel by Irwin Shaw, was broadcast in 12 one-hour episodes in 1976 by ABC. It popularized the miniseries format and started a decade-long golden age of television miniseries versions of popular books featuring stars above television class. Alex Haley's "Roots" in 1977 can fairly be called the first blockbuster success of the format. Its success in the USA was partly due to its schedule: the 12-hour duration was split into eight episodes broadcast on consecutive nights, resulting in a finale with a 71 percent share of the audience and 130 million viewers, which at the time was the highest rated TV program of all time. "TV Guide" (April 11–17, 1987) called 1977's "Jesus of Nazareth" "the best miniseries of all time" and "unparalleled television". "North and South", the 1985 adaptation of a 1982 novel by John Jakes, remains one of the 10 highest rated miniseries in TV history.


title: Miniseries

text: Japanese serialized television production can be traced back to the "Sunday Diary of My Home" ("Waga Ya no Nichiyo Nikki"), which was aired by NTV in 1953 and consisted of 25 half-hour episodes. This "home drama" focused on generational differences and the contradictions of being a loving family in a confined space, outlining a style of drama that lives on to this day. In the same year NHK tried its own variation of the home drama format in the "Ups and Downs Toward Happiness" ("Kofuku e no Kifuku"), which comprised thirteen episodes. Its protagonists, a formerly wealthy family fallen on hard times, is forced to struggle for its own existence. Since then, Japanese television drama, also called , became a staple of Japanese television.


title: Miniseries

text: Evening dramas air weekly and usually comprise ten to fourteen one-hour long episodes. Typically, instead of being episodic there is one story running throughout the episodes. Since they are of a fixed length, dramas have a definite ending, and since they are relatively long, they can explore character, situation, and interesting dialogue in a way not possible in movies. Doramas are never canceled mid-season, but they also do not continue into the next season even if extremely popular. Popular dramas do often give rise to "specials" made after the final episode, if the show has been a huge success.


title: Miniseries

text: South Korea started to broadcast television series () in the 1960s. Since then, the shows became popular worldwide, partially due to the spread of the Korean Wave, with streaming services that offer multiple language subtitles.


title: Miniseries

text: Korean dramas are usually helmed by one director and written by one screenwriter, thus having a distinct directing style and language, unlike American television series, where often several directors and writers work together. Series set in contemporary times usually run for one season, for 12−24 episodes of 60 minutes each.


title: Miniseries

text: Historical series ("Sageuk") may be longer, with 50 to 200 episodes, and are either based on historical figures, incorporate historical events, or use a historical backdrop. While technically the word "sageuk" literally translates to "historical drama," the term is typically reserved for dramas taking place during Korean history. Popular subjects of sageuks have traditionally included famous battles, royalty, famous military leaders and political intrigues.


title: Miniseries

text: Korean dramas are usually shot within a very tight schedule, often a few hours before actual broadcast. Screenplays are flexible and may change anytime during production, depending on viewers' feedback.


title: Miniseries

text: While the Soviet Union was among the first European countries to resume television broadcast after the Second World War, early Soviet television did not indulge its viewers with a variety of programming. News, sports, concerts and movies were the main staples during the 1950s. With state control over television production and broadcast, television was intended not merely for entertainment, but also as the means of education and propaganda. Soap operas, quiz shows and games were considered too lowbrow.


title: Miniseries

text: In the beginning of the 1960s television was expanding rapidly. The increase in the number of channels and the duration of daily broadcast caused shortage of content deemed suitable for broadcast. This led to production of television films, in particular "multiple-episode television films" (Russian: многосерийный телевизионный фильм "mnogoseriyny televizionny film")—the official Soviet moniker for miniseries. Despite that the Soviet Union started broadcasting in color in 1967, color TV sets did not become widespread until the end of the 1980s. This justified shooting made-for-TV movies on black-and-white film.


title: Miniseries

text: The 1965 four-episode "" is considered the first Soviet miniseries. It is a period drama set in the Second World War depicting the Soviet guerrilla fighters infiltrating German compound and directing the fire of the regular Soviet Army to destroy the German airfield. During the 1970s the straightforward fervor gave way to a more nuanced interplay of patriotism, family and everyday life wrapped into traditional genres of crime drama, spy show or thriller. One of the most popular Soviet miniseries—"Seventeen Moments of Spring" about a Soviet spy operating in Nazi Germany—was shot in 1972. This 12-episode miniseries incorporated features of political thriller and docudrama and included excerpts from period newsreels. Originally produced in black-and-white in 4:3 aspect ratio, it was colorized and re-formatted for wide-screen TVs in 2009.


title: Miniseries

text: Other popular miniseries of the Soviet era include "The Shadows Disappear at Noon" (1971, 7 episodes) about the fate of several generations of locals from a Siberian village; "The Long Recess" (1973, 4 episodes) about the students and teachers of a night school; "The Ordeal" (1977, 13 episodes)—an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Aleksey Tolstoy, which traces the development of the Russian society during the critical years of the First World War, the 1917 revolution and the civil war that followed; "The Days of the Turbins" (1976, 3 episodes)—an adaptation of the play of the same name by Mikhail Bulgakov, about the fate of intelligentsia during the October Revolution in Russia; "The Twelve Chairs" (1976, 4 episodes)—an adaptation of the satirical novel of the same name by Ilf and Petrov, where two partners in crime search for chairs from a former twelve-chair set, one of which has jewelry stashed in it; "Open Book" (1977, 9 episodes)—an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Veniamin Kaverin about a Soviet female microbiologist who obtained the first batches of penicillin in the Soviet Union and organized its production; "The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed" (1979, 5 episodes) about the fight against criminals in the immediate post-war period; "Little Tragedies" (1979, 3 episodes)—a collection of short theatrical plays based on works by Alexander Pushkin; "The Suicide Club, or the Adventures of a Titled Person" (1981, 3 episodes) about the adventures of Prince Florizel, a character of "The Suicide Club" stories by Robert Louis Stevenson; "Dead Souls" (1984, 5 episodes)—an adaptation of the novel of that name by Nikolai Gogol chronicling travels and adventures of Pavel Chichikov and the people whom he encounters; and "TASS Is Authorized to Declare..." (1984, 10 episodes) about the tug-of-war of Soviet and American intelligence agencies.


title: Miniseries

text: Numerous miniseries were produced for children in the 1970s-1980s. Among them are: "The Adventures of Buratino" (1976, 2 episodes)—an adaptation of "The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Buratino" by Alexey Tolstoy, which in turn is a retelling of "The Adventures of Pinocchio" by Carlo Collodi; "The Two Captains" (1976, 6 episodes)—an adaptation of "The Two Captains" by Veniamin Kaverin about a search for a lost Arctic expedition and the discovery of Severnaya Zemlya; "The Adventures of Elektronic" (1979, 3 episodes) about a humanoid robot meeting and befriending his prototype—a 6th grade schoolboy; "Guest from the Future" (1985, 5 episodes) about a girl travelling to contemporary time from the future.


title: Miniseries

text: After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 the Russian television saw a period of privatization and liberalization. The television programming of the 1990s-2000s included a great deal of crime dramas set both in contemporary times ("The Criminal Saint Petersburg", 2000, 90 episodes) as well in the Tsarist Russia ("The Mysteries of Sankt Petersburg", 1994, 60 episodes).


title: Miniseries

text: Starting from the 2000s, Russian TV saw a resurgence of book adaptations, such as "The Idiot" (2003, 10 episodes)—an adaptation of the novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky; "The Case of Kukotskiy" (2005, 12 episodes)—an adaptation of the novel by Lyudmila Ulitskaya; "The Master and Margarita" (2005, 10 episodes)—an adaptation of the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov; "Doctor Zhivago" (2006, 11 episodes)—an adaptation of the novel by Boris Pasternak; "Fathers and Sons" (2008, 4 episodes)—an adaptation of the novel by Ivan Turgenev; "Life and Fate" (2012, 12 episodes)—an adaptation of the novel by Vasily Grossman; "Kuprin" (2014, 13 episodes)—an adaptation of several novels by Aleksandr Kuprin.


title: Miniseries

text: In Brazil, the Rede Globo television network commenced the production of this type of television genre with the transmission of "Lampião e Maria Bonita", written by Aguinaldo Silva and Doc Comparato and directed by Paulo Afonso Grisolli, and broadcast in 1982 in eight episodes; in Brazil these episodes are popularly known as "chapters", because each episode is analogous to a book chapter, where the following chapter begins at the same point where the previous one has ended.


title: Miniseries

text: Rede Manchete, in the following year after its creation (1984), has produced and broadcast "Marquesa de Santos".


title: Miniseries

text: The usually consist of several dozen chapters, occasionally having longer duration, like that consists of 60 chapters, making it almost a "mini-telenovela".


title: Miniseries

text: Due to the fact that they are broadcast at a later time than telenovelas (usually after 22:00 or 10 p.m.), miniseries are more daring in terms of themes, scenes, dialogues and situations, a function previously played by the "novelas das dez"—a popular term referring to the telenovelas that were broadcast at 10 p.m. between 1969 and 1979.


title: Miniseries

text: Miniseries made by Rede Globo are released in the DVD format by the aforementioned television network, and a few of these miniseries are also released as a book, especially in the case of great successes such as "Anos Rebeldes" ("Rebel Years") and "A Casa das Sete Mulheres" ("The House of the Seven Women"); the latter was based on the eponymous book written by Letícia Wierzchowski, which became known due to the miniseries.


title: Miniseries

text: The eighteen-hour 1983 miniseries "The Winds of War" was a ratings success, with 140 million viewers for all or part of the miniseries, making it the most-watched miniseries up to that time. Its 1988 sequel "War and Remembrance" won for best miniseries, special effects and single-camera production editing, and was considered by some critics the ultimate epic miniseries on the American television. However, it also signalled the start of the format's decline, as the $105 million production was a major ratings flop; the advent of VCR and cable television options was responsible for the decrease of length and ratings of most miniseries that continued into the mid-1990s. By 1996, the highest-rated miniseries of the winter season garnered a 19 rating, less than the rating average of 22 of that same season's top-rated regular series.


title: Miniseries

text: In Egypt, the 1980s and 1990s was the golden age of television miniseries attracting millions of Egyptians. For example, "Mr. Shalash's Family" miniseries starring Salah Zulfikar was the highest rated at the time.


title: Miniseries

text: The Emmy Award was taken three times by the British police procedural drama "Prime Suspect". A highlight of the 1990s was an HBO production "From the Earth to the Moon", telling the story of the landmark Apollo expeditions to the Moon during the 1960s and early 1970s.


title: Miniseries

text: In the 21st century the format made a comeback on cable television and became popular on streaming services. History, for example, has had some of its greatest successes with miniseries such as "", "Hatfields & McCoys" and "The Bible", "Political Animals" by USA Network was honored with a Critics' Choice Television Award for Most Exciting New Series award, while HBO's "Big Little Lies" (which was eventually renewed for a second season) won eight Emmy awards.


title: Miniseries

text: To designate one-season shows that are not intended for being renewed for additional seasons, the broadcast and television industry came up with terms like "limited series" or "event series". These terms also apply to multi-season shows which feature rotating casts and storylines each season, such as "American Horror Story", "Fargo" and "True Detective". This makes the self-contained season longer than a miniseries, but shorter than the entire run of the multi-season series. This terminology became relevant for the purpose of categorization of programs for industry awards.


title: Miniseries

text: Several television executives interviewed by "The Hollywood Reporter" stated that the term "miniseries" has negative connotations to the public, having become associated with melodrama-heavy works that were commonly produced under the format, while "limited series" or "event series" demand higher respect. (Such was the cause of the parody miniseries "The Spoils of Babylon", which lampooned many of the negative stereotypes of miniseries.)


title: Miniseries

text: In the 21st century, two miniseries have had significant impact on pop culture, and are often named the two best shows ever made: "Band of Brothers", released in 2001, and "Chernobyl", released in 2019. When the final episode of Chernobyl aired, it was already the highest rated show in IMDb history.


title: Without Me (Eminem song)

text: "Without Me" is a song by American rapper Eminem from his fourth studio album "The Eminem Show" (2002). "Without Me" was released on May 15, 2002, as the lead single from the album, and re-released on his greatest hits compilation album "" (2005). "Without Me" is one of Eminem's most successful singles, reaching number two in the U.S. "Billboard" Hot 100, and number one in fifteen countries.


title: Without Me (Eminem song)

text: The song was Eminem's return after the successful "The Marshall Mathers LP", intended as a sequel to "The Real Slim Shady" and essentially says that he is back to save the world. It also refers to Eminem's role in the music industry and his effect on culture.


title: Without Me (Eminem song)

text: The song mocks a number of Eminem's critics, including then-Vice-president Dick Cheney (including his recurring heart problems) and his wife Lynne, the FCC, Chris Kirkpatrick (of NSYNC), Limp Bizkit and Moby, as well as parodying Prince's decision to change his name to a symbol. It also lampoons comparisons of him to Elvis Presley as a white man succeeding commercially in a predominantly black art form. A line also attacks his mother Debbie Mathers for the lawsuit she filed for the lyrics of his debut single "My Name Is".


title: Without Me (Eminem song)

text: The opening lyric ""Two trailer park girls go round the outside"" is based on the country rap single "Buffalo Gals" by Malcolm McLaren. The introduction—"Obie Trice, real name, no gimmicks"—is sampled from Obie Trice's own track "Rap Name".


title: Without Me (Eminem song)

text: Stephen Thomas Erlewine marked it as one of the best tracks on "The Eminem Show". David Browne was positive: "'I've created a monster, 'cuz no one wants to hear Marshall no more,' he (Eminem) whines, partly in jest, in the beat-crazy single 'Without Me'." "HipHopDX" noted that the blazing single "Without Me" is one of the only light-hearted songs on the album. "NME" magazine noted that this song is "tackling disco." RapReviews wrote: "His fearlessness continues on the lead single "Without Me" when he lambasts everyone from Dick Cheney's wife to the leading electronic artists of the day." Kris Ex exclaims: ""Without Me"—like his "The Real Slim Shady," the leadoff single from 2000's "The Marshall Mathers LP"—is a fun-loving, barb-laden romp on which he flits from one topic to the next like a bumblebee with ADD."


title: Without Me (Eminem song)

text: "Without Me" is one of Eminem's most successful singles. The song reached the number one position in the charts in numerous countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand for 7 weeks. In the United States, the song reached a peak of number two on the "Billboard" Hot 100 behind "Hot in Herre" by Nelly, although it reached number one on both the Mainstream Top 40 and Rhythmic charts.


title: Without Me (Eminem song)

text: "Without Me" was nominated for Record of the Year at the Grammy Awards of 2003 (losing to Norah Jones's song "Don't Know Why"), being Eminem's first song to receive a Grammy nomination in a major category. It also received a nomination for Best Male Rap Solo Performance but lost that award as well to the song "Hot in Herre" by rapper Nelly.


title: Without Me (Eminem song)

text: The song's music video features a number of scenarios built around its context, including Eminem and Dr. Dre as parodies of comics in general, specifically Batman, Robin (Rap Boy), and Blade trying to save a child who bought a copy of "The Eminem Show" that has a Parental Advisory sticker. Eminem and his band of heroes rush to the rescue before the child puts the CD in his CD player and when they arrive Rap Boy snatches it away from him, showing that his CD has explicit lyrics that are not suitable for him to listen to. The kid cries and is upset after Rap Boy and Blade (Dr. Dre) confiscate the album away from him. The video was shot from April 12–13 at Barwick Studios. The comic and the scene with Moby feature a rabbit costume, a possible reference to the one featured in two Love Inc. music videos. As of May 2022, the music video has over 1.4 billion views.


title: Without Me (Eminem song)

text: This video received MTV Video Music Awards for Video of the Year, Best Male Video, Best Rap Video, and Best Direction (for Joseph Kahn), as well as gaining nominations for Best Editing and Viewer's Choice. It also won Best Short Form Music Video at the Grammy Awards of 2003.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The Las Vegas Valley is a major metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada, and the second largest in the Southwestern United States. The state's largest urban agglomeration, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Statistical Area is coextensive since 2003 with Clark County, Nevada. The Valley is largely defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a basin area surrounded by mountains to the north, south, east and west of the metropolitan area. The Valley is home to the three largest incorporated cities in Nevada: Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas. Eleven unincorporated towns governed by the Clark County government are part of the Las Vegas Township and constitute the largest community in the state of Nevada.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The names Las Vegas and Vegas are interchangeably used to indicate the Valley, the Strip, and the city, and as a brand by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority to denominate the region. The Valley is affectionately known as the "ninth island" by Hawaii natives and Las Vegans alike, in part due to the large number of people originally from Hawaii who live in and regularly travel to Las Vegas.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Since the 1990s, the Las Vegas Valley has seen rapid growth, tripling its population from 741,459 in 1990 to 2,227,053 estimated in 2018. The Las Vegas Valley remains one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the United States. In its relatively short history, it has established a diverse presence in international business, commerce, urban development, and entertainment, as well as one of the most visited tourist attractions destinations in the world. In 2014, a record-breaking 41 million visited the Las Vegas area, producing a gross metropolitan product of more than $100 billion.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The first reported non-Native American visitor to the Las Vegas Valley was the Mexican scout Rafael Rivera in 1829. Las Vegas was named by Mexicans in the Antonio Armijo party, including Rivera, who used the water in the area while heading north and west along the Old Spanish Trail from Texas. In the 19th century, areas of the valley contained artesian wells that supported extensive green areas, or meadows, hence the name "Las Vegas" ("vegas" being Spanish for "meadows").


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The area was previously settled by Mormon farmers in 1854 and later became the site of a United States Army fort in 1864, beginning a long relationship between southern Nevada and the U.S. military. Since the 1930s, Las Vegas has generally been identified as a gaming center as well as a resort destination, primarily targeting adults.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Nellis Air Force Base is located in the northeast corner of the valley. The ranges that the Nellis pilots use and various other land areas used by various federal agencies, limit growth of the valley in terms of geographic area.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Businessman Howard Hughes arrived in the late 1960s and purchased many casino hotels, as well as television and radio stations in the area. Legitimate corporations began to purchase casino hotels as well, and the mob was run out by the federal government over the next several years. The constant stream of tourist dollars from the hotels and casinos was augmented by a new source of federal money from the establishment of what is now Nellis Air Force Base. The influx of military personnel and casino job-hunters helped start a land building boom which is now leveling off.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The valley is contained in the Las Vegas Valley landform. This includes the cities of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, and Henderson, and the unincorporated towns of Summerlin South, Paradise, Spring Valley, Sunrise Manor, Enterprise, Winchester, and Whitney. The valley is located within the larger metropolitan area, as the metropolitan area covers all of Clark County including parts that do not fall within the valley.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The government of Clark County has an "Urban Planning Area" of Las Vegas. This definition is a roughly rectangular area, about from east to west and from north to south. Notable exclusions from the "Urban Planning Area" include Red Rock, Blue Diamond, and Mount Charleston.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department is the largest police department in the valley and the state and exercises jurisdiction in the entire county. There are approximately 3,000 police officers who cover the city of Las Vegas; unincorporated areas; the town of Laughlin, about from Downtown Las Vegas; and desert, park, and mountain areas within Clark County. The department does not exercise primary jurisdiction in areas with separate police forces such as North Las Vegas, Henderson, Boulder City, Nellis Air Force Base and the Paiute reservation.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The metropolitan area was created for the 1970 census when it only included Clark County. In 2000, the metropolitan area was changed to include Nye County, Nevada, and Mohave County, Arizona, but it later returned to only being Clark County.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The Office of Management and Budget has designated Clark County as the Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, NV Metropolitan Statistical Area. The United States Census Bureau ranked the Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, NV Metropolitan Statistical Area as the 31st most populous metropolitan statistical area of the United States as of July 1, 2012.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The Office of Management and Budget has further designated the Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, NV Metropolitan Statistical Area as a component of the more extensive Las Vegas–Henderson, NV–AZ CSA, the 27th most populous combined statistical area and the 30th most populous primary statistical area of the United States as of July 1, 2012.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The Las Vegas Valley lies in the Mojave Desert. The valley in the northwest section is a northwest-by-southeast trending area, and trending parallel to Las Vegas Wash, lies at the northeast of the Spring Mountains massif.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: U.S. Route 95 leaves Las Vegas's northwest and goes northwesterly through the northwest valley section, with Las Vegas Wash about northeast. U.S. 95 lies on the southwest perimeter of the valley bottomlands, and small alluvial fan areas from the northeast Spring Mountains border southwest.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: A "distorted surface", a playa-like region, occurs at the farthest northwest area, for about , starting from Nevada Route 157. At Nevada Route 156, northwest, the distorted surface, bottom land turns north, a area in length and about wide. It lies at the south drainage section of the Three Lakes Valley, where a water divide separates Dog Bone Lake in the valley's center from the southwest washes that drain into the Las Vegas Valley (upland Las Vegas Wash).


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The Corn Creek Dunes lie about southwest of Route 156's intersection with U.S. 95, and they are slightly northeast of Las Vegas Wash.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The Las Vegas Valley is around . All perimeters, except the northwest, are foothills or mountain ranges, with all highway routes entering the foothills; this includes the Interstate 15 to the southwest, as it climbs to Jean Pass (north), before traversing Ivanpah Valley. Only the U.S. Route 95 northwest follows an actual valley. The northwest section, thus describes the entire landform as a central, and large valley with an attached feeder valley northwest, and in this case the northwest source, and actual course of the Las Vegas Wash.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The valley is a fault-bounded structural and hydrologic basin made of alluvial-fan deposits. There are several aquifers contained within the valley including the Las Vegas Aquifer. These heavily depleted water sources exist at about in depth. As of 1986, estimate show that the valley floor in Downtown Las Vegas has subsided by about and about along The Strip as a result of pumping from these aquifers.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The Las Vegas Valley lies in a relatively high-altitude portion of the Mojave Desert, with a subtropical hot-desert climate. The Valley generally averages less than of rain annually. Daily daytime summer temperatures in July and August typically range from to , while nights generally range from to . Very low humidity, however, tempers the effect of these temperatures, though dehydration, heat exhaustion, and sun stroke can occur after even a limited time outdoors in the summer. The interiors of automobiles often prove deadly to small children and pets during the summer and surfaces exposed to the sun can cause first- and second-degree burns to unprotected skin. July and August can also be marked by monsoon season, when moist winds from the Gulf of California soak much of the Southwestern United States. While not only raising humidity levels, these winds develop into dramatic desert thunderstorms that can sometimes cause flash flooding.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Winter days in metropolitan Las Vegas range from mild to quite chilly, and sunny most days; while winter itself is of short duration. Winter highs in December and January usually range from to , while nighttime lows range from to . The mountains surrounding the valley are snow-covered during the winter season, but snow accumulation in the metropolitan area itself is uncommon. Every few years apart, however, Las Vegas does get a small measurable snowfall.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The valley is an active earthquake zone crossed by multiple fault and thrust lines. These include the long Frenchman Mountain Fault capable of a magnitude 7 event, Whitney Mesa Fault, Cashman Fault, Valley View Fault, Decatur Fault, Eglington Fault and the West Charleston Fault.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Having part of the region in a desert basin creates problems with air quality. From the dust the wind picks up, to the smog produced by vehicles, to the pollen in the air, the valley has several bad air days.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Pollen can be a major problem several weeks a year, with counts occasionally in the 70,000-plus range. Local governments are trying to control this by banning plants that produce the most pollen.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The dust problems usually happen on very windy days, so they tend to be short and seasonal. Full-fledged dust storms are rare.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Smog, on the other hand, gets worse when there is no wind to move the air out of the valley. Also, in winter it is possible for an inversion to form in the valley.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Since manufacturing is not a dominant industry of Las Vegas, and with Clark County working to control air quality problems, success has been shown over the years.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The native flora does little to help the soil retain water. During the intense rains of monsoon season or (relatively) wet months of January and February, a network of dry natural channels, called washes or arroyos, carved into the valley floor allows water to flow down from the mountains and converge in the Las Vegas Wash which runs through the Clark County Wetlands Park. The wash system used to form a large natural wetlands which then flowed into the Colorado River, until the construction of Hoover Dam on the Colorado River led to the creation of Lake Mead. Further development in the 1980s and 1990s made Lake Las Vegas, which required directing the Las Vegas Wash into tunnels which run under Lake Las Vegas and into Lake Mead.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Nevada receives an allocation of water each year from Lake Mead, with credits for water it returns to the lake. The allocations were made with the Colorado River Compact when Nevada had a much smaller population and very little agriculture. The allocations were also made during a wet string of years, which overstated the available water in the entire watershed. As a result, precipitation that is below normal for a few years can significantly affect the Colorado River reservoirs. The Las Vegas area uses most of this allocation with Laughlin, Nevada using most of the remaining allocation. In June 2007, the price of a cubic meter was 57 cents in Las Vegas. Las Vegas gets around 90 percent of its water from Lake Mead.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Early Vegas depended on the aquifer which fed the flowing springs supporting the meadows that gave the area its name, but the pumping of water from these caused a large drop in the water levels and ground subsidence over wide areas of the valley. Today, the aquifers are basically used to store water that is pumped from the lake during periods of low demand and pumped out during periods of high demand.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The population doubling time in the greater metropolitan area was under ten years, since the early 1970s and the Las Vegas metropolitan area now has a population approaching two million people. This rapid population growth led to a significant urbanization of desert lands into industrial and commercial areas (see suburbia).


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The driving force in Las Vegas is the tourism industry and the area has about 150,000 hotel rooms, more than any other city in the world. In the past, casinos and celebrity shows were the two major attractions for the area. Now shopping, conventions, fine dining, and outdoor beauty are also major forces in attracting tourist dollars.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Las Vegas serves as world headquarters for the world's largest Fortune 500 gaming company, MGM Resorts International. Several companies involved in the manufacture of electronic gaming machines, such as slot machines, are located in the Las Vegas area. In the first decade of the 21st century, shopping and dining have become attractions of their own. Tourism marketing and promotion are handled by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, a county-wide agency. Its annual Visitors Survey provides detailed information on visitor numbers, spending patterns, and resulting revenues.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: While Las Vegas has historically attracted high-stake gamblers from around the world, it is now facing tougher competition from the UK, Hong Kong and Macau (China), Eastern Europe and developing areas in the Middle East.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Las Vegas has recently enjoyed a boom in population and tourism. The urban area has grown outward so quickly that it borders Bureau of Land Management holdings along its edges. This has led to an increase in land values such that medium- and high-density development is occurring closer to the core. The Chinatown of Las Vegas was constructed in the early 1990s on Spring Mountain Road. Chinatown initially consisted of only one large shopping center complex, but the area was expanded with shopping centers that contain various Asian businesses. Over the past few years, retirees have been moving to the metro area, driving businesses that support them from housing to health care.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: While the cost of housing spiked up over 40% in 2004, the lack of business and income taxes still makes Nevada an attractive place for many companies to relocate to or expand existing operations. Being a true twenty-four-hour city, call centers have always seemed to find Las Vegas a good place to hire workers who are accustomed to working at all hours.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The construction industry accounts for a share of the economy in Las Vegas. Hotel casinos planned for the Strip can take years to build and employ thousands of workers. Developers discovered that there was demand for high-end condominiums. By 2005, more than 100 condominium buildings were in various stages of development, however, in 2008, the construction industry went into a downturn due to the credit crunch, though the industry has since seen a rebound.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: In 2000, more than 21,000 new homes and 26,000 resale homes were purchased. In early 2005, there were 20 residential development projects of more than each underway. During that same period, Las Vegas was regarded as the fastest-growing community in the United States.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Other promising residential and office developments have begun construction around Downtown Las Vegas. New condominium and high-rise hotel projects have changed the Las Vegas skyline dramatically in recent years. Many large high-rise projects are planned for Downtown Las Vegas, as well as the Las Vegas Strip.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Construction in Las Vegas is a major industry and quickly growing with the population. In March 2011, construction employed 40,700 people and is expected to grow with the recovering economy. Since the mega resorts that define Las Vegas today began going up in the early 1970s, construction has played a vital role in both commercial and non commercial developments. Cranes are a constant part of the Las Vegas Skyline. At any given time there are 300 new homes being constructed in Las Vegas. Downtown and The Strip always have at least one hospitality project under construction. In addition, in recent years Las Vegas has seen a spike in high-rise housing units. Luxurious condos and penthouse suites are always being built. New suburban master planned communities are also becoming common in Las Vegas ever since The Howard Hughes Corporation began work on Summerlin, an upper-class community on the west side of the valley.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The massive project CityCenter broke ground on June 26, 2006. Now completed at 3780 Las Vegas Boulevard South, it is the largest privately funded building complex in the world. At a cost of $9.2 billion, CityCenter was one of the largest projects in Vegas history. It put a massive strain on the construction ability and workforce of the area due to number of laborers and amount of materials required. Because of this, prices of almost any construction project in Las Vegas doubled. It is currently held by MGM Resorts International and has three hotels, two condo towers, and a hotel-condo building along with a large shopping and entertainment center.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Traditionally, housing consisted primarily of single-family detached homes. Slab-on-grade foundations are the common base for residential buildings in the valley. Apartments generally were two-story buildings. Until the 1990s, there were exceptions, but they were few and far between. In the 1990s, Turnberry Associates constructed the first high rise condominium towers. Prior to this, there were only a handful of mid-rise multi-family buildings. By the mid-2000s, there was a major move into high rise condominiums towers, which affected the region's skyline around the Strip.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The Las Vegas Valley is home to various suburban master planned communities that include extensive recreational amenities such as lakes, golf courses, parks, bike paths and jogging trails. Planned communities in the valley include Aliante, Anthem, Cadence, Centennial Hills, Green Valley, Inspirada, Lake Las Vegas, The Lakes, Mountain's Edge, Peccole Ranch, Providence, Rhodes Ranch, Seven Hills, Skye Canyon, Southern Highlands, and Summerlin.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Some technology companies have either relocated to Las Vegas or were created there. For various reasons, Las Vegas has had a high concentration of technology companies in electronic gaming and telecommunications industries.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Some current technology companies in southern Nevada include: Bigelow Aerospace, Petroglyph, Switch Communications, US Support LLC, Fanatics, and Zappos.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: In 2015, Electric vehicle startup Faraday Future has chosen North Las Vegas's Apex Industrial Park for its $1 billion car factory.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Companies that originally were formed in the Las Vegas region, but have since sold or relocated include Westwood Studios (sold to Electronic Arts), Systems Research & Development (Sold to IBM), Yellowpages.com (Sold to BellSouth and SBC), and MPower Communications.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The major attractions in the Las Vegas Valley are the hotel/casinos. These hotels generally consist of large gambling areas, theaters for live performances, shopping, bars/clubs, and several restaurants and cafes. There are clusters of large hotel/casinos located in both downtown Las Vegas and on the Las Vegas Strip. The largest hotels are mainly located on the Strip, which is a four-mile section of Las Vegas Boulevard. These hotels provide thousands of rooms of various sizes. Fifteen of the world's 25 largest hotels by room count are on the Strip, with a total of over 62,000 rooms. There are many hotel/casinos in the city's downtown area as well, which was the original focal point of the Valley's gaming industry. Several hotel/casinos ranging from large to small are also located around the city and metro area. Many of the largest hotel, casino, and resort properties in the world are located on the Las Vegas Strip.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The valley's casinos can be grouped into several locations. The largest is the Las Vegas Strip, followed by Downtown Las Vegas, and then the smaller Boulder Strip. There are also several one-off single standing hotel/casinos dotted around the valley and the metro area.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: In 2011, the majority of tourists arrived from the western states (55%) with 31% from California alone. Approximately 16% of tourists arrived from outside North America.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Las Vegas has expanded its attractiveness to visitors by offering both affordable and high-end merchandise in many shops and shopping malls. Many hotels on the Las Vegas Strip also have adjacent shopping malls, giving the Las Vegas area the highest concentration of shopping malls in any four mile stretch of road. In addition to the malls on the Strip, there are several outlying malls in the City of Las Vegas, Henderson, and the surrounding area. The monorail, lying somewhat east of the Strip, facilitates north–south travel, including stations at several casinos and the Las Vegas Convention Center.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Las Vegas holds many of the world's largest conventions each year, including CES, SEMA, and Conexpo. The Las Vegas Convention Center is one of the largest in the world with 1,940,631 sq ft (180,290.5 m) of exhibit space. These events bring in an estimated $7.4 billion of revenue to the city each year, and host over 5 million attendees.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The "First Friday" celebration, held on the first Friday of each month, exhibits the works of local artists and musicians in an area just south of downtown. The city is home to an extensive Downtown Arts District which hosts numerous galleries, film festivals, and events.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The Southern Nevada Zoological-Botanical Park, also known as the Las Vegas Zoo, used to exhibit over 150 species of animals and plants. The Zoo closed its doors in September, 2013.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay is the only aquarium that is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums in the state of Nevada. It features over 2,000 animals and 1,200 species in 1.6 million gallons of seawater.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The $485 million Smith Center for the Performing Arts is located downtown in Symphony Park. The center is appropriate for Broadway shows and other major touring attractions as well as orchestral, opera, choir, jazz, and dance performances.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art is a facility presenting high-quality art exhibitions from major national and international museums. Past exhibits have included the works of Andy Warhol, Alexander Calder, and Peter Carl Fabergé. A self-guided audio tour is also offered.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The Las Vegas Natural History Museum features robot dinosaurs, live fish, and more than 26 species of preserved animals. There are several "hands-on" areas where animals can be petted.