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Author: Prof. Dr. Andrew Targowski
Publisher: Informing Science
ISBN: 1681100061
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 288
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Book Description
The aim of this book is to synthesize the role of information throughout the history of civilization’s development. This will be defined through the convergence of (a) the cumulative evolution and revolution of the intellect (cognition as data, information, concepts, knowledge, and wisdom), (b) labor, and (c) politics which seek to control the environment, society, and the world, applying culture and infrastructure as tools. Whereas researchers reveal the myriad of dimensions of the social order and its historiography, this book provides a synthesis of the relations, which is limited to information (and its informing systems) and civilization within the context of historiosophie (history with judgment). The method presented in this book—the architectural approach to the dynamics of civilizational development—is a new layer over the quantitative history based on statistical data. In an architectural synthesis of civilization, we seek a “big picture” of “civilization waves” in order to develop some criteria-oriented views of the world and its future predictability. To understand the crises and conflicts of civilization which are driven by technology in recent centuries, such a synthesis as well as optimism for human proactive adaptation, survival, and, development must be undertaken. This approach to civilizational development should allow humans to eventually “reinvent the future” in a continuous manner. We, in due course, should be able to predict the “rate of change” and provide “civilization bridging solutions” based on original thinking. It is important to remind ourselves that information is as old as our world (about 15 billion years) because plants and trees and, in general, non-human nature produces all sorts of information, for example, the changing colors of plants and trees, which is associated with the different seasons. When the first living organisms appeared on our planet, they had ability to inform as well by changing forms, colors, signals and, so one. The first signs of life on our planet came into being about 3.85 billion years ago. Therefore, organism-based life on the Earth actually came to be over a period of just 130 million years. Hominids diverged from apes some 10-6 million years ago (instinct-driven info-communication, i.e., behavior less controlled by cognition), and the first humans (bipeds with large brains who could use tools and sound-driven info-communication) took form around 6-2.5 million years ago in Southeast Africa. Homo symbolicus, who could skillfully use language, appeared about 60,000 years ago. The origin of civilization some 6,000 years ago marks the beginning of the first advanced info-communication systems applied by humans, who could even record information.
Author: Prof. Dr. Andrew Targowski
Publisher: Informing Science
ISBN: 1681100061
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Get Book Here
Book Description
The aim of this book is to synthesize the role of information throughout the history of civilization’s development. This will be defined through the convergence of (a) the cumulative evolution and revolution of the intellect (cognition as data, information, concepts, knowledge, and wisdom), (b) labor, and (c) politics which seek to control the environment, society, and the world, applying culture and infrastructure as tools. Whereas researchers reveal the myriad of dimensions of the social order and its historiography, this book provides a synthesis of the relations, which is limited to information (and its informing systems) and civilization within the context of historiosophie (history with judgment). The method presented in this book—the architectural approach to the dynamics of civilizational development—is a new layer over the quantitative history based on statistical data. In an architectural synthesis of civilization, we seek a “big picture” of “civilization waves” in order to develop some criteria-oriented views of the world and its future predictability. To understand the crises and conflicts of civilization which are driven by technology in recent centuries, such a synthesis as well as optimism for human proactive adaptation, survival, and, development must be undertaken. This approach to civilizational development should allow humans to eventually “reinvent the future” in a continuous manner. We, in due course, should be able to predict the “rate of change” and provide “civilization bridging solutions” based on original thinking. It is important to remind ourselves that information is as old as our world (about 15 billion years) because plants and trees and, in general, non-human nature produces all sorts of information, for example, the changing colors of plants and trees, which is associated with the different seasons. When the first living organisms appeared on our planet, they had ability to inform as well by changing forms, colors, signals and, so one. The first signs of life on our planet came into being about 3.85 billion years ago. Therefore, organism-based life on the Earth actually came to be over a period of just 130 million years. Hominids diverged from apes some 10-6 million years ago (instinct-driven info-communication, i.e., behavior less controlled by cognition), and the first humans (bipeds with large brains who could use tools and sound-driven info-communication) took form around 6-2.5 million years ago in Southeast Africa. Homo symbolicus, who could skillfully use language, appeared about 60,000 years ago. The origin of civilization some 6,000 years ago marks the beginning of the first advanced info-communication systems applied by humans, who could even record information.
Author: Johan Goudsblom
Publisher: Viking Adult
ISBN:
Category : Civilization
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
Fire is a destructive force. It is also a great purveyor of the advancement of human life. In an exploration of this dichotomy, Goudsblom investigates man and his realtionship to--and fascination with--combustion from every possible perspective--historical, archaeological, anthropological, psychological, biological, ecological, and sociological--illuminating the legacy of fire on world history.
Author: Brett Bowden
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1459605721
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 570
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Book Description
The term civilization comes with considerable baggage, dichotomizing people, cultures, and histories as civilized - or not. While the idea of civilization has been deployed throughout history to justify all manner of interventions and sociopolitical engineering, few scholars have stopped to consider what the concept actually means. Here, ..
Author: Keith Thomas
Publisher: Brandeis University Press
ISBN: 1512602825
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 378
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Book Description
Keith Thomas's earlier studies in the ethnography of early modern England, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Man and the Natural World, and The Ends of Life, were all attempts to explore beliefs, values, and social practices in the centuries from 1500 to 1800. In Pursuit of Civility continues this quest by examining what English people thought it meant to be "civilized" and how that condition differed from being "barbarous" or "savage." Thomas shows that the upper ranks of society sought to distinguish themselves from their social inferiors by distinctive ways of moving, speaking, and comporting themselves, and that the common people developed their own form of civility. The belief of the English in their superior civility shaped their relations with the Welsh, the Scots, and the Irish, and was fundamental to their dealings with the native peoples of North America, India, and Australia. Yet not everyone shared this belief in the superiority of Western civilization; the book sheds light on the origins of both anticolonialism and cultural relativism. Thomas has written an accessible history based on wide reading, abounding in fresh insights, and illustrated by many striking quotations and anecdotes from contemporary sources.
Author: D. Wengrow
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199699429
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 238
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Book Description
A vivid new account of the 'birth of civilization' in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia where many of the foundations of modern life were laid
Author: Niall Ferguson
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101548029
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 434
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Book Description
From the bestselling author of The Ascent of Money and The Square and the Tower “A dazzling history of Western ideas.” —The Economist “Mr. Ferguson tells his story with characteristic verve and an eye for the felicitous phrase.” —Wall Street Journal “[W]ritten with vitality and verve . . . a tour de force.” —Boston Globe Western civilization’s rise to global dominance is the single most important historical phenomenon of the past five centuries. How did the West overtake its Eastern rivals? And has the zenith of Western power now passed? Acclaimed historian Niall Ferguson argues that beginning in the fifteenth century, the West developed six powerful new concepts, or “killer applications”—competition, science, the rule of law, modern medicine, consumerism, and the work ethic—that the Rest lacked, allowing it to surge past all other competitors. Yet now, Ferguson shows how the Rest have downloaded the killer apps the West once monopolized, while the West has literally lost faith in itself. Chronicling the rise and fall of empires alongside clashes (and fusions) of civilizations, Civilization: The West and the Rest recasts world history with force and wit. Boldly argued and teeming with memorable characters, this is Ferguson at his very best.
Author: Ntina Tzouvala
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108497187
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 277
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Book Description
Using the theoretical tools drawn from historical materialism and deconstruction, Tzouvala offers a comprehensive history of the standard of civilisation.
Author: B. Bowden
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1782545727
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 218
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Book Description
'Civilization and War is an exceptionally erudite and timely meditation on the close relationship between civilization, progress and war in modern political thought and policy from the Enlightenment to the war on terror. It is a fitting complement to Dr. Bowden's path-breaking study, The Empire of Civilization (2009).' James Tully, University of Victoria, Canada 'Civilization and War addresses a concern of all thinking persons in elegant language with erudition to match. Bowden's readers will profit by stretching their minds, learn much to mull over and discuss with their friends.' William H. McNeill, University of Chicago, US 'A lucid, wide-ranging and fascinating discussion of how "civilization" has given rise to ideals of peace and progress and is perhaps inescapably prone to technologically-advanced, destructive warfare.' Andrew Linklater, Aberystwyth University, UK 'Following his award-winning The Empire of Civilization, Brett Bowden's Civilization and War is a much-needed corrective to Kantian hopes for cosmopolitan governance. Short as it may be, this is an eminently readable book that rightfully poses uncomfortable questions with regard to the inextricable link between "civilization" and "barbarism." It is also a reminder, however, to political realists to take the ethical questions of armed conflict more seriously. Such violence is overcome less by normative moral frameworks than by the actual practices of migration and cooperation as much as by exchanges of goods and ideas.' Christian Emden, Rice University, US Civilization and war were born around the same time in roughly the same place they have effectively grown up together. This challenges the belief that the more civilized we become, the less likely the resort to war in order to resolve differences and disputes. The related assumption that civilized societies are more likely to abide by the rules of war is also in dispute. Where does terrorism fit into debates about civilized and savage war? What are we to make of talk about an impending 'clash of civilizations'? In a succinct yet wide ranging survey of history and of ideas that calls in to question a number of conventional wisdoms, Civilization and War explores these issues and more whilst outlining the two-way relationship between civilization and war. Providing an alternative perspective to conventional thinking, this book will appeal to a wide interdisciplinary audience across all regions of the globe. The material is both original and highly topical and is written in a sharp, snappy style that makes it accessible to a wide readership, including upper-level undergraduates, postgraduates, academic specialists and informed general readers. Civilization and War makes important contributions to the fields of international relations, peace and conflict studies, political theory and the history of ideas, and will be of interest to people with a curiosity about world history and current affairs.
Author: Jo Marchant
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593183045
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 401
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Book Description
A Best Book of 2020 (NPR) A Best Book of 2020 (The Economist) A Top Ten Best Science Book of 2020 (Smithsonian) A Best Science and Technology Book of 2020 (Library Journal) A Must-Read Book to Escape the Chaos of 2020 (Newsweek) Starred review (Booklist) Starred review (Publishers Weekly) A historically unprecedented disconnect between humanity and the heavens has opened. Jo Marchant's book can begin to heal it. For at least 20,000 years, we have led not just an earthly existence but a cosmic one. Celestial cycles drove every aspect of our daily lives. Our innate relationship with the stars shaped who we are—our art, religious beliefs, social status, scientific advances, and even our biology. But over the last few centuries we have separated ourselves from the universe that surrounds us. It's a disconnect with a dire cost. Our relationship to the stars and planets has moved from one of awe, wonder and superstition to one where technology is king—the cosmos is now explored through data on our screens, not by the naked eye observing the natural world. Indeed, in most countries, modern light pollution obscures much of the night sky from view. Jo Marchant's spellbinding parade of the ways different cultures celebrated the majesty and mysteries of the night sky is a journey to the most awe-inspiring view you can ever see: looking up on a clear dark night. That experience and the thoughts it has engendered have radically shaped human civilization across millennia. The cosmos is the source of our greatest creativity in art, in science, in life. To show us how, Jo Marchant takes us to the Hall of the Bulls in the caves at Lascaux in France, and to the summer solstice at a 5,000-year-old tomb at Newgrange, Ireland. We discover Chumash cosmology and visit medieval monks grappling with the nature of time and Tahitian sailors navigating by the stars. We discover how light reveals the chemical composition of the sun, and we are with Einstein as he works out that space and time are one and the same. A four-billion-year-old meteor inspires a search for extraterrestrial life. The cosmically liberating, summary revelation is that star-gazing made us human.
Author: Jed Z. Buchwald
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691154783
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 544
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Book Description
Reveals the manner in which Newton strove for nearly half a century to rectify universal history by reading ancient texts through the lens of astronomy, and to create a tight theoretical system for interpreting the evolution of civilization on the basis of population dynamics
