Showing 1–12 of 15 resultsSorted by latest
There can be few more important but also more contentious issues than attempting to understand the human propensity for conflict. Our history is inextricably tangled in wave after wave of inter-human fighting from as far back as we have records. How can we make sense of what Einstein called ‘the dark places of human will and feeling’? Richard Overy draws on a lifetime’s study of conflict to write this challenging, invaluable book.
Life is uncertain. We are all the result of an unforeseen and unforeseeable sequence of small occurrences. But what underlies this fragile chain of events? Is it random or just complex? And what role does luck play in our lives? David Spiegelhalter has spent his career crunching data in order to help understand uncertainty and assess the chances of what might happen. In ‘The Art of Uncertainty’, he gives readers a window onto how we can all do this better.
Our lives are more mediated than ever before. Adults in economically advanced countries spend, on average, over eight hours per day interacting with the media. The news and entertainment industries are being transformed by the shift to digital platforms. But how much is really changing in terms of what shapes media content? What are the impacts on our public and imaginative life? And is the Internet a democratising tool of social protest, or of state and commercial manipulation? Drawing on decades of research to examine these and other questions, this book interrogates claims about the Internet, explores how representations in TV and film may influence perceptions of self, and traces overarching trends while attending to crucial local context, from the United States to China, Norway to Malaysia, and Brazil to Britain.
Education remains the greatest indicator of life chances in Britain. What we study, where we study, and how long for shape all aspects of our lives. Our careers, our long-term health, our wealth and security are all moulded in the classroom. But who we are ultimately matters the most. In this book, Professor Kalwant Bhopal shows how race still determines who gains the best education in Britain, and who falls by the wayside. Through case studies, original research and interviews with students, teachers, and academics alike, she reveals how the construction of privilege starts at a young age: with Whiteness taking some students on a gilded path from cradle to career, while many still struggle to build the futures they deserve. This book highlights how classrooms and lecture halls are at the centre of perpetuating white privilege – and how racism continues to exist in Britain.
Here is a reassuring and thought-provoking guide to all the big questions about AI and ethics. Should robots ever be considered free? Will computers transcend human intelligence? And what can we do to make sure AI is safe? The artificial intelligence revolution has begun. Today, there are self-driving cars on our streets, autonomous weapons in our armies, robot surgeons in our hospitals – and AI’s presence in our lives will only increase. Some see this as the dawn of new era in innovation and ease; others are alarmed by its destructive potential. But one thing is clear: this is a technology like no other, one that raises profound questions about freedom, justice and the very definition of human agency. In ‘Moral AI’, world-renowned researchers in artificial intelligence and philosophy, Jana Schaich Borg, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, and Vince Conitzer tackle these thorny issues head-on.
Traditionalism is the shadowy philosophy that has influenced so much of the 20th century and beyond: from the far right to the environmental movement, from Alexander Dugin to Prince Charles. It is a new way of seeing the world: one that rejects modernity and instead turns to sacred truth, perennialism and tradition as its guide. This study peels back the curtain on Traditionalist philosophy and the thought of its proponents РRen̩ Gu̩non, Julius Evola and Frithjof Schuon Рand their many and varied followers.
There is in Athens a rather plain ruin; a simple courtyard lined with fragments of wall. Yet, this little patch of land has a claim to be the most significant place in human history. It is the Lyceum, site of Aristotle’s school: here the philosopher wandered, discussing his life’s work with students, proposing answers to the mysteries of the human condition. Today, it can be difficult to fully comprehend the staggering influence of these lessons. Aristotle’s observations about the world around him and his reflections on the nature of knowledge laid the foundations for all empirical science. His study of rational thought formed the basis of formal logic, the cornerstone of philosophical investigation. His examination of Greek city-states gave us political science, while his analysis of drama remains a mainstay of literature courses around the world.
The defining event of 20th-century Europe – the extermination of millions of Jews – has been commemorated, institutionalised and embedded in our collective consciousness. But in this nuanced and perceptive new history, Dan Stone contends that the true dimension of the horror wrought by the Nazis is inadvertently brushed aside in our current culture of commemoration. This is due in part to practical or conceptual challenges, such as the continent-wide scale of the crime and the multiplicity of sources in many languages; and in part to an unwillingness to confront the reality that the Holocaust could not have happened without the assistance of numerous non-Nazi states and agents. This work is structured around four themes – trauma, collaboration, genocidal fantasy and post-war consequences.
Inspired by Jules Verne’s hero Phileas Fogg, David Damrosch, chair of Harvard’s department of Comparative Literature and founder of Harvard’s Institute for World Literature, set out to counter a pandemic’s restrictions on travel by exploring eighty exceptional books from around the globe. Following a literary itinerary from London to Venice, Tehran, and points beyond, and via authors from Woolf and Dante to Nobel prizewinners Orhan Pamuk, Wole Soyinka, Mo Yan, and Olga Tokarczuk, he explores how these works have shaped our idea of the world, and the ways the world bleeds into literature. To chart the expansive landscape of world literature today, Damrosch explores how writers live in two very different worlds: the world of their personal experience, and the world of books that have enabled great writers to give shape and meaning to their lives.
Reducing energy use is the single biggest challenge facing architecture today. From the humblest prehistoric hut to the imposing monuments of Rome or Egypt to super-connected modern airports, buildings in every era and place have been shaped by the energy available for their construction and running. This survey tells the story of our buildings from our hunter-gatherer origins to the age of fossil-fuel dependence, and shows how architecture has been influenced by designers, builders and societies adapting to changing energy contexts. It is a celebration of human ingenuity and creativity, and a timely reminder of the scale of the task ahead in our search for truly sustainable architecture.
Planet Earth is mostly blue; about 70% of the earth’s surface is covered by the oceans, which provide half of the oxygen we breathe and about three-quarters of all life on Earth. But who owns the sea? About 40% of the world’s population lives in coastal communities and depend on ocean resources. Yet over the 20th century governments and corporations around the world have pushed the fatally flawed maxim of ‘blue growth’, and as a result nearly all fish stocks are either fully or over-exploited. In the neoliberal era, it has been extensively enclosed and privatized, generating multiple inequalities. A system of rentier capitalism now dominates human activity in the sea, based on privatization, financial capital and a drive for profit over people and ecosystems. Substantial and detailed, ‘The Blue Commons’ peels back the veil of the boundless exploitation and corruption.
When did humans develop spiritual thought? What is religion’s evolutionary purpose? And in our increasingly secular world, why has it endured? Every society in the history of humanity has lived with religion. In this book, evolutionary psychologist Professor Robin Dunbar tracks its origins back to what he terms the ‘mystical stance’ – the aspect of human psychology that predisposes us to believe in a transcendent world, and which makes an encounter with the spiritual possible. As he explores world religions and their many derivatives, as well as religions of experience practised by hunter-gatherer societies since time immemorial, Dunbar argues that this instinct is not a peculiar human quirk, an aberration on our otherwise efficient evolutionary journey.
No products in the basket.
Notifications