Integrating concepts from philosophical, anthropological, and astrobiological disciplines, Cosmos and Culture begins to explore the interdisciplinary questions of cosmic evolution.
At that time I had just published research indicating that the overwhelming majority of patients who had undergone multiple surgeries on noses that the patients already knew were normal had a 90% likelihood of childhood abuse or neglect, and that the chance of making those patients happy in one operation was only 3%.1 , 2 These are the desperate people tha…
Trees can also be tied to the idea of domination. I have long argued that the process of ecological restoration, in which a kind of environ-mental engineering attempts the re-creation of previously degraded or destroyed natural environments, is an example of the human project to assert our technological mastery over the autonomous processes of the natural world.1 The management of forests for h…
These listings provided the now vanished cinematic geography of prewar Paris. One could chart how movies moved through neighborhoods, the de-velopment (and closure) of cinemas, and the relative importance of movies to diferent parts of town (typically around eighteen cinemas in the periph-eral, working-class twentieth arrondissement and none in the firs…
The Dutch limes zone roughly comprises a 50 km wide strip in the middle of the Netherlands, stretching from the North Sea until Germany over a distance of approximately 150 km from west to east. To the north, the zone is bordered by the course of the Rhine, which was established as the northern frontier of the Roman Empire around the middle of the first century CE. The Romans never …
Public interest in biblical archaeology is at an all-time high, as television documentaries pull in millions of viewers to watch shows on the Exodus, the Ark of the Covenant, and the so-called Lost Tomb of Jesus. Important discoveries with relevance to the Bible are made virtually every year--during 2007 and 2008 alone researchers announced at least seven major discoveries in Israel, five of th…
Critical theory emerged in the 1920s from the work of the Frankfurt School, the circle of German-Jewish academics who sought to diagnose—and, if at all possible, cure—the ills of society, particularly fascism and capitalism. In this book, Stephen Eric Bronner provides sketches of leading representatives of the critical tradition (such as George Lukács and Ernst Bloch, Theodor Adorno and Wa…
Global warming is arguably the most critical and controversial issue facing the world in the twenty-first century. This Very Short Introduction provides a concise and accessible explanation of the key topics in the debate: looking at the predicted impact of climate change, exploring the political controversies of recent years, and explaining the proposed solutions.
A remarkable structure sits on the west side of Manhattan. Although 111 Eighth Avenue is only eighteen floors high, it consumes an entire massive New York City block and was built with big things in mind. The building (see fig. 1.1), which contains 50 percent more square feet than the Empire State Building, was designed with elevators so large …
Chapters presented in this volume identify the commonalities of water management in societies across a wide range of ecological and cli-mate zones. This constructs a solid step towards the development of effective solutions to some acute water-related problems. A constant theme across time is the need for water, to fulfil which technologies have change…
In 221 B.C. the First Emperor of Qin unified what would become the heart of a Chinese empire whose major features would endure for two millennia. In the first of a six-volume series on the history of imperial China, Lewis highlights the key challenges facing the court officials and scholars who set about governing an empire of such scale and diversity.
This volume explores the concept of humour and its relationship with human behaviour. The interdisciplinary essays in this book cover a wide range of time, from the sixteenth century to the present day. They delve into various cultural contexts, challenging social norms and prompting readers to reflect on the ethical implications of humour. The collection highlights the varied metaphors of hero…
Learn Old English (Anglo-Saxon) with this best-selling course from Teach Yourself - the No. 1 brand in language learning. Equally suited to general reader, historian and student of literature, this new edition teaches vocabulary and grammar through original texts, with audio support, traces the roots of modern English words, and explores the Anglo-Saxon cultural context through poems, prose and…
The only up-to-date frequency dictionary of Spanish currently available, this is an invaluable tool for all learners of Spanish that provides a list of the 5,000 most commonly used words in the language. Based on a twenty million word corpus evenly divided between spoken, fiction and non-fiction texts from both Spain and Latin America, the Dictionary provides a detailed frequency-based list,…
In his introduction to Irish Drama and Theatre since 1950 (2019), Patrick Lonergan outlines the genealogy of the #WakingTheFeminists movement, which began as a contestation of how the Abbey’s 2016 Waking the Nation programme marginalised female playwrights and directors, but quickly expanded to raise awareness about the precarious position of women in …
Though the guitar as we know it is only about a century and a half old, its roots as a plucked stringed instrument go back deep into history. Many ancient folk instruments have followed the basic strings-stretched-overfretboard-and-played-with-fingers design for thousands of years, and the guitar is in some ways the culmination of that legacy. It seems humans have always had something like the …
The word manage, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is derivative of the Latin manus, or hand and emerges from the Italian maneggiare, which refers to the handling or training of horses. Its use has since been expanded to represent a broader concern for the proper handling of things or people, particularly with regard to a company or organization. This is true across multiple levels of…
Depth of focus describes the image location range where the image is clear when focused by an optical system. Outside this range, the image will be significantly blurry. However, within this few millimeter range, the image appears quite sharp. When working with a multiple lens system, it is essential to first calculate the position of the image formed by the first lens. Only after locating the …
equently missing from this burgeoning discourse, however, are contributions by archaeologists, and historical archaeologists in par-ticular,6 as well as conscious attempts to study this region’s past from an interdisciplinary perspective. A recent special edition of the journal Slavery and Abolition demonstrates that some historians are increas-ingly aware …
The Creator sat upon the throne, thinking. Behind him stretched the illimitable continent of heaven, steeped in a glory of light and color; before him rose the black night of Space, like a wall. His mighty bulk towered rugged and mountain-like into the zenith, and His divine head blazed there like a distant sun. At His feet stood three colossal figures, diminished to extinction, almost, by cont…
Our starting point for this Handbook is a conviction that the best form of post-conflict government is a democratic one. This is not so much a principled stand as a pragmatic one. Winston Churchill famously expressed a similar pragmatism when he remarked: “Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”. It may not be perfect, b…
This book attempts to understand the origins and development of religious belief in Iceland and greater Scandinavia through the lenses of five carefully selected Icelandic folktales collected in Iceland during the nineteenth century. Each of these five stories has a story of its own: a historical and cultural context, a literary legacy, influences from beliefs of all kinds (orthodox and heterod…
I would like to begin by saying a few things about the origin and purpose of this book. These chapters began as a series of lectures organized and sponsored by the Esalen Center for Theory and Research, founded by independent scholar Michael Murphy, author of The Future of the Body. Mike likes to convene groups of passionate and competent scholars to discuss issues and themes that are not being…
Concepts of ‘balance’ have been central to modern politics, medicine and society. Yet, while many health, environmental and social challenges are discussed globally in terms of imbalances in biological, social and ecological systems, strategies for addressing modern excesses and deficiencies have focused almost exclusively on the agency of the individual. Balancing the Self explores the div…
Over the past 100 years or so, American popular music has gained acceptance at home and abroad. It has become the music that many, especially the young and young at the heart, listen to virtually all of the time. In the United States, the vast array of popular music forms are aired by more than 90 percent of all radio stations. Internationally, both American versions of popular songs and versio…
In this volume, Mark Luccarelli pushes past unproductive mind/body debates by rooting the rise of environmental awareness in the political and geographical history of the US. Considering history in terms of the categorical development of space - social, territorial and conceptual - the book examines the forces that drove people to ignore their surroundings by distancing culture from place and b…
This split presents a bit of a dilemma for both programmers and book authors. While it would be easier for a book to pretend that Python 2 never existed and cover 3 only, this would not address the needs of the large Python user base that exists today. A vast amount of existing code was written for Python 2, and it won’t be going away any time soon. And while newcomers to the language can foc…
Mengapa Edinburgh dapat melahirkan sekumpulan genius kreatif, Florence melahirkan Leonardo da Vinci, dan Silicon Valley melahirkan Steve Jobs? Apakah karena iklimnya, toleransi masyarakatnya, sumber daya melimpah, atau hanya keberuntungan belaka? Lalu, apakah formula genius juga berlaku di tempat lain? Para genius tidak lahir di sembarang waktu dan tempat. Leonardo da Vinci tak akan melahirkan…
Apakah orang Swiss lebih bahagia karena negara mereka paling demokratis di dunia? Apakah penduduk Qatar, yang bergelimang dolar dari minyak, menemukan kebahagiaan di tengah semua kekayaan itu? Apakah Raja Bhutan seorang pengkhayal karena memakai indikator kebahagiaan rakyat yang disebut Gross National Happiness sebagai prioritas nasional? Mengapa penduduk Asheville, Carolina Utara, sangat bahag…
You have been given a tremendous gift, rooted in God's desire to know you personally. It is called prayer. Prayer is God's invitation for you to enter into his presence with confidence, to hand Him all your hurts, needs, and worries. Pray is God's antidote to the toxins of fear, cynicism, skepticism, and self-centeredness that swirl around us.
his book is a venture in the metaphysics of science, the exploration of the most basicfeatures of the world implied or presupposed by science. One of its main aims is todemonstrate the fundamental importance of such an investigation. Getting this verygeneral picture right makes a real difference to whether we do the science well andunderstand properly what it tells us. The particular metaphysic…
An extravagant but cleverly planned burlesque that works as a condemnation of Chivalry, one of Twain's chief aversions.
This book is about storytellers and their oral performances of folktales in Mayotte, an island lying in the Indian Ocean about 1,000 miles east of the African coast. The book is built on a constraint: I have not witnessed the performances I discuss; in fact I have never been to Mayotte. Within that constraint, I indulge a whim. I use books by three French ethnographers …
For many centuries humanity had dreamt of flight, of the wonders of a speedy and expansive mobility above land and sea. This feat was finally accomplished during the early years of the twentieth century, when the Wright brothers and Louis Bleriot took to the air in powered flight. But celebration was soon tarnished by the onset of aerial warfare and its frightening…
On a mild summer day in 2005, Aku Wuwu and I traveled by jeep into a narrow valley in Xide County, in the Liangshan Mountains of southern Sichuan.1 Our mission was to find a folk version of The Book of Origins, which relates the origins of the life-forms of earth and sky, including the early human lineages. The epic is key to the ritual life of…
Orchids are some of the best known and loved plants by amateurs and scientists alike, although sadly many species are being driven to extinction by either direct or indirect human activities. The preparation of a conservation Action Plan for the Orchidaceae, a family comprising some 20,000 species, therefore seemed a daunting task, but this compilation of views and experience from many experts …
In it’s broadest possible sense, music is defined as “organized sound.” This openended and safe definition is coherent regardless of era, style, culture, or the mechanics of musical organization. Each successive historical era produces musically artistic expressions of its own time, its own musical aura. The study of Music Theory is the means by which we investigate this. Among the commu…
Addressing a wide range of improvised art and music forms—from jazz and cinema to dance and literature—this volume's contributors locate improvisation as a key site of mediation between the social and the aesthetic. As a catalyst for social experiment and political practice, improvisation aids in the creation, contestation, and codification of social realities and identities. Among other to…
Understanding the embedded and disembedded, material and immaterial, territorialized and deterritorialized natures of digital work. Many jobs today can be done from anywhere. Digital technology and widespread internet connectivity allow almost anyone, anywhere, to connect to anyone else to communicate and exchange files, data, video, and audio. In other words, work can be deterritorialized at a…
This text explains how to use mathematical models and methods to analyze problems that arise in computer science. Proofs play a central role in this work because the authors share a belief with most mathematicians that proofs are essential for genuine understanding. Proofs also play a growing role in computer science; they are used to certify that software and hardware will always behave correc…
High-quality work is central for a productive and thriving society. Ensuring a sufficient quality of work – as a policy issue – as opposed the government’s conventional responsibility of ensuring a sufficient quantity of work – reached its zenith in the UK in July 2017 when the government published a review to scope out a new national job quality strategy. The public…
The global Living Planet Index continues to decline. It shows anaverage 68% decrease in population sizes of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish between 1970 and 2016. A 94% decline in the LPI for the tropical subregions of the Americas is the largest fall observed in any part of the world. Why does this matter? It matters because biodiversity is fundamental to human life on Earth, and…
The tendency towards concentration in the corporate sector has been given a huge boost as we approach the twenty-first century. There were more mega-mergers in 1998 than in any previous year - in banking, insurance, oil, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, automobiles and the media. This merger frenzy has amplified the power of a handful of companies over whole sectors of the global economy. The merger…
I recently saw a debate about whether the opening day of hunting season was more exciting than Christmas morning. If you’re anything like me — it’s not just the first day that is enthralling. It’s every stalk, every bugle, everytime my finger inches toward the trigger. The passion never quits, and I’m looking forward to a great 2022 season. As the director of the Wyoming Game and Fish…
This book presents an argument for the importance of circulation in the study of museum collections, past and present. Bringing together international researchers from a wide variety of disciplines (including the history of science, museum anthropology, archaeology, geography and postcolonial history) to consider the mobility of collections, we aim to provi…
In-chapter Examples walk students through problems by posing a question, stepping out a solution, and then asking students to practice the skill with a “Check Your Learning” component. The book also includes assessments at the end of each chapter so students can apply what they’ve learned through practice problems. Chemistry was conceived and written to fit a particular topical sequence, …
On behalf of vehicle and engine manufacturers from around the world, the Worldwide Fuel Charter (WWFC) Committee is pleased to present the Sixth Edition of the Worldwide Fuel Charter for Gasoline and Diesel Fuel, 21 years after publishing the First Edition. In addition to this Charter, the Committee recently published the First Edition of the WWFC for Methane-Based Transportation Fuels and prev…
Unlike the items in Neil MacGregor’s bestselling A History of the World in 100 Objects, our small cabinet’s curious objects cannot be found in a single museum.1 The reasons for this are several. First, from the late 15th century down to our own day, the New World, and in particular that part of it now called Latin America, has been plundered and pilfered fo…
Dalam buku ini, Eric Weiner melakukan perjalanan keliling ke beberapa tempat di dunia untuk mencari tahu hubungan antara lingkungan kita dan ide-ide inovatif. Ia menjelajahi sejarah kota-kota, seperti Wina, Florence, Athena, Hangzhou, dan tentu saja Silicon Valley. Masih dengan gayanya yang nakal, cerdas, dan humoris, Weiner menapaktilasi jalan yang pernah dilalui Socrates, Michaelangelo, dan …