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Author
Language
English
Description
Is the world falling apart? Is progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to stop back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the...
Author
Series
Publisher
Princeton University Press
Language
English
Description
We live in an age of unprecedented prosperity, yet everywhere we see signs that our pursuit of happiness has proven fruitless. Dissatisfied, we seek change for the sake of change - even if it means undermining the foundations of our common life. In Why We Are Restless, Benjamin and Jenna Storey offer a profound and beautiful reflection on the roots of this malaise and examine how we might begin to cure ourselves. Drawing on the insights of Montaigne,...
Author
Language
English
Description
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction • Winner of the National Book Award • New York Times Bestseller
Renowned scholar Stephen Greenblatt brings the past to vivid life in what is at once a supreme work of scholarship, a literary page-turner, and a thrilling testament to the power of the written word.
Author
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
"One of the most stunning achievements of moral philosophy is something we take for granted: moral universalism, or the idea that every human has equal moral worth. In What We Owe the Future, Oxford philosopher William MacAskill demands that we go a step further, arguing that people not only have equal moral worth no matter where or how they live, but also no matter when they live. This idea has implications beyond the obvious (climate change) - including...
Author
Language
English
Description
Friedman discusses how the key to understanding the 21st century is understanding that the planet's three largest forces -- Moore's law (technology), the market (globalization) and Mother Nature (climate change and biodiversity loos) -- are accelerating all at once. And these accelerations are transforming the five key realms: the workplace, politics, geopolitics, ethics, and community. Friedman posits that we should purposely "be late" -- we should...
Author
Publisher
Soho Press
Language
English
Formats
Description
"The time we've been thrown into is one of alarming and bewildering change--the breakup of the post-1945 global order, a multispecies mass extinction, and the beginning of the end of civilization as we know it. Not one of us is innocent, not one of us is safe. Now what? We're Doomed, Now What? addresses the crisis that is our time through a series of brilliant, moving, and original essays on climate change, war, literature, and loss, from one of the...
Publisher
Thames & Hudson
Language
English
Description
For over five hundred years, empires have been a feature of the political landscape, and today, many contemporary conflicts resonate with issues tied to colonial conquest and the uneasy situations they produced. Empires evoke potent images: Henry Morton Stanley, David Livingstone, and the gallery of colonial explorers; the Spanish conquistadors' quest for gold and silver; and the Dutch heritage of trade in the East Indies. These legacies still pose...
Author
Language
English
Description
From one of the world's leading experts on the history of energy, a rigorous examination of the transitions that structure our modern world—and the environmental reckoning that will mark its success or failure. What makes the modern world work? The answer to this deceptively simple question lies in four "grand transitions" of civilization—in populations, agriculture, energy, and economics—which have transformed the...
Author
Publisher
Spiegel & Grau
Pub. Date
[2018]
Language
English
Description
Shares insights into such present-day issues as the role of technology in transforming humanity, the epidemic of false news, and the modern relevance of nations and religion.
"How do computers and robots change the meaning of being human? How do we deal with the epidemic of fake news? Are nations and religions still relevant? What should we teach our children? Yuval Noah Harari's [book] is a probing and visionary investigation into today's most urgent...
Author
Publisher
Yale University Press
Pub. Date
[2004]
Language
English
Description
"In this book an eminent scholar of modern culture shows that the Enlightenment was a more complex phenomenon than most of its detractors and advocates assume. It included rationalist as well as antirationalist tendencies, a critique of traditional morality and religion as well as an attempt to establish them on new foundations, even the beginning of a moral renewal and a spiritual revival."
Author
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Formats
Description
"Vaclav Smil's mission is to make facts matter. An environmental scientist, policy analyst, and a hugely prolific author, he is Bill Gates' go-to guy for making sense of our world. In Numbers Don't Lie, Smil answers questions such as: What's worse for the environment--your car or your phone? How much do the world's cows weigh (and what does it matter)? And what makes people happy?"--
Author
Pub. Date
2010.
Language
English
Formats
Description
"'The Memory Chalet' is a memoir unlike any you have ever read before. Each essay charts some experience or remembrance of the past through the sieve of Tony Judt's prodigious mind. His youthful love of a particular London bus route evolves into a reflection on public civility and interwar urban planning. Memories of the 1968 student riots of Paris meander through the divergent sex politics of Europe, before concluding that his generation 'was a revolutionary...
Author
Publisher
St. Martin's Press
Pub. Date
©2016.
Language
English
Description
The present is a contest between the bright and dark sides of discovery. To avoid being torn apart by its stresses, we need to recognize the fact - and gain courage and wisdom from the past. Age of Discovery shows how. Now is the best moment in history to be alive, but we have never felt more anxious or divided. Human health, aggregate wealth and education are flourishing. Scientific discovery is racing forward. But the same global flows of trade,...
Author
Publisher
Yale University Press
Pub. Date
[2023]
Language
English
Description
Amongst the Ruins' explores the loss of ancient civilizations, the collapse of ruling elites, and the disappearance of more recent communities and their local traditions. Some of these are now sealed under 3,000-year-old peat, others lost to rising seas or sands, and the carcasses of twentieth-century buildings which serve as reminders of the destructive power of war.0 0These compelling stories of fallen or lost places are brought together through...
Author
Publisher
Melville House
Pub. Date
[2020]
Language
English
Description
"Our economic situation, political discourse, and future prospects have gotten much worse since a guy brought a sign that said "Shit is Fucked Up and Bullshit" to the Occupy Wall Street protests. We all knew what he meant then... but where are we now? And how has so much happened since the so-called end of history? Malcolm Harris, one of our sharpest and most versatile critics, tackles these questions in over 30 new and selected pieces, examining...
Author
Publisher
Basic Books
Pub. Date
1996 printing.
Language
English
Description
"With a new preface by the author, this reissue of Thomas Sowell's classic study of decision making updates his seminal work in the context of The Vision of the Annointed, Sowell, one of America's most celebrated public intellectuals, describes in concrete detail how knowledge is shared and disseminated throughout modern society. He warns that society suffers from an ever-widening gap between firsthand knowledge and decision making--a gap that threatens...
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