Word: provocateur
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Liebert two years ago conducted "a rather through exploration" of Lang's background in preparing a book review and came away fascinated by the mathematician's brilliance and his "reputation as a gadfly and a provocateur." Liebert and others describe Lang as a fiercely determined, sincere and relentless advocate of political issues in the academic world, who forces his adversaries to address complex problems with unbroken logic...
Liebert adds that Lang's "mainly a door opener. He's mainly a provocateur. There are people who would be downright slanderous if public correspondence were the vehicle that all of us were to use for assessing other people's work...
...jointed remake of Thunderball. Once again, the scenario has something to do with the theft of nuclear warheads and their use as a blackmail weapon. The plot's mastermind is played with silky, neurotic charm by Klaus Maria Brandauer (so fine in Mephisto), while as his chief agent provocateur, Barbara Carrera deftly parodies all the fatal femmes who have slithered through Bond's career. And it is good to see Connery's grave stylishness in this role again. It makes Bond's cynicism and opportunism seem the product of genuine worldliness (and world weariness) as opposed...
Herman Kahn, who died last week at his home in Chappaqua, N.Y., of a heart attack at 61, was a mathematician, physicist, economist, weapons analyst and historian. But above all he was a provocateur in the sedate world of ideas, a futurist who attempted, in his own words, "to cope with history before it happens." He was a pioneer in using scientific and mathematical tools to project the future. With his 300-lb. bulk and a florid face framed by a tailored white beard, Kahn had a commanding presence that seemed to complement a mental and verbal vigor bordering...
...painter Frida Kahlo (1907-54), is a mesmerizing story of radical art, romantic politics, bizarre loves and physical suffering that raises the question, Why hasn't someone told it all before? Part of the answer is that Kahlo was the wife of Diego Rivera, the muralist and cultural provocateur who overshadowed nearly everybody and everything he touched. He would, in fact, have dominated this book about his wife if Biographer and New York Art Critic Hayden Herrera had not put him in his place...